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THE   CITIZEN'S   LIBRARY 

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ECONOMICS,    POLITICS,   AND 
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EDITED   BY 
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POLITICAL  SCIENCE,   AND   HISTORY, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN 


HISTORY   OF   POLITICAL    PARTIES 
IN   THE   UNITED    STATES 


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IN  PREPARATION. 

ESSAYS   IN   THE    MONETARY    HISTORY    OF 
THE    UNITED    STATES. 

BY  CHARLES  J.  BULLOCK,  PH.D. 

HISTORY    OF    POLITICAL   PARTIES    IN    THE 
UNITED   STATES. 

BY  JESSE  MACY,  LL.D. 

MUNICIPAL    ENGINEERING    AND   SANITATION. 

BY  MR.  M.  N.  BAKER. 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY, 
66  FIFFH  AVENUE. 


THE    CITIZEN'S  LIBRARY 


Political   Parties  in  the 
United  States 

"  /  H&-fe  '* 
1846-1861 


BY 


JESSE    MACY,  A.M.,   LL.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  POLITICAL  SCIENCE   IN   IOWA  COLLEGE 
AUTHOR  OF  "  THE  ENGLISH  CONSTITUTION  " 


THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON  :   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1900 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1900, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


SPRECKELS, 

, 


J.  8.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  4  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  may  be  described  as  a  study  of  the 
American  party  system.  The  references  to  the 
party  systems  in  other  States  are  for  the  purpose 
of  making  clear,  in  the  first  place,  the  relation  of 
the  political  party  to  despotic  governments,  and, 
in  the  second  place,  to  show  that  in  each  State 
where  Democracy  is  far  enough  advanced  to  give 
rise  to  political  parties  the  form  of  organization  is 
determined  by  its  political  institutions.  The  pecul- 
iar American  system  arises  from  peculiar  American 
institutions.  The  old  Federal  party  died  because 
it  was  un-American  in  the  form  of  its  organization. 
Under  the  party  names  of  Whig  and  Democrat 
the  system  reached  a  high  degree  of  perfection ; 
but  there  was  a  maladjustment  between  the  party 
machinery  and  public  opinion,  the  parties  went  to 
pieces,  and  the  Civil  War  was  the  result.  This 
volume  treats  especially  of  the  great  Whig  failure 
and  its  consequences.  Since  the  disruption  of  the 
Union  there  have  been  two  rather  distinct  periods 
of  party  history,  equally  deserving  of  special  study. 
The  first  ends  with  the  withdrawal  of  the  troops 
from  the  last  of  the  Confederate  States  in  1877. 
This  is  emphatically  the  abnormal  period  of  our 

V 

100264 


vi  PREFACE 

party  history.  Armies  were  then  substituted  for 
party  organizations,  and  a  political  party  supported 
by  an  army  ceases  to  be  a  normal  political  party. 
It  was  during  this  abnormal  period  that  the  spoils 
system  reached  perfection,  and  the  control  of  the 
party  organizations  passed  into  the  hands  of  pro- 
fessional managers,  supported  by  special  interests 
in  more  or  less  conscious  conspiracy  against  the 
people.  During  the  period  following  the  end  of 
"carpet-bag"  rule  in  the  South,  our  party  history 
has  been  characterized  by  a  series  of  efforts  on 
the  part  of  the  people  to  regain  possession  of  their 
parties  as  organs  of  public  opinion. 

There  are  many  passages  in  this  book  that  are 
sure  to  give  the  impression  that  I  am  an  advocate 
of  our  party  system.  Nothing  is  farther  from  my 
purpose.  Yet  I  do  advocate  the  use  of  our  parties 
to  secure  the  ends  of  good  government  until  some 
better  agency  is  discovered. 

In  the  preparation  of  the  manuscript  I  have 
received  many  valuable  suggestions  from  Professor 
Ely,  the  editor  of  the  Series. 

JESSE  MACY. 

GRINNELL,  IOWA, 
September  5,  1900. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     THE  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  THE  MODERN 

POLITICAL  PARTY i 

II.     ORIGIN  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PARTY  SYSTEM  .      23 

III.  PARTY  ISSUES 40 

IV.  THE  SPOILS  SYSTEM  AND  PARTY  ORGANIZA- 

TION     57 

V.  ANTE-BELLUM  vs.  PRESENT  POLITICS    .        .      74 

VI.  SCIENCE  AND  POLITICS          ....      83 

VII.  SLAVERY  AS  A  PARTY  ISSUE         ...      93 

VIII.  CAUSES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR  ....     102 

IX.  THE  LAST  WHIG  ADMINISTRATION       .        .119 

X.  THE  GREAT  WHIG  FAILURE         .        .        .131 

XI.  THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW  .        .        .        .153 

XII.  IMPORTANCE    OF    THE    AMERICAN     PARTY 

SYSTEM 162 

XIII.  RISE  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY         .        .183 

XIV.  THE  WAR  IN  KANSAS 203 

XV.    CAMPAIGN  OF  1856 221 

XVI.    THE  DRED  SCOTT  DECISION         .        .        .    229 
XVII.    FREE  SOIL  VICTORY  IN   THE  TERRITORIES 

UNDER   THE   LEADERSHIP   OF   DOUGLAS          .      240 
vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

XVIII.  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  AS  A  TYPICAL  DEMO- 
CRAT           .        .  247 

XIX.  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  REVIVED       .        .  258 

XX.  JOHN  BROWN  AT  HARPER'S  FERRY      .        .  276 

XXL  CAMPAIGN  OF  1860 283 

XXII.  DRIFTING  INTO  WAR 301 


POLITICAL   PARTIES    IN   THE 
UNITED  STATES 


CHAPTER   I 

THE    ORIGIN    AND    NATURE    OF    THE    MODERN 
POLITICAL   PARTY 

POLITICAL  parties  are  found  only  in  democratic 
countries,  or  at  least  in  countries  where  the  prin- 
ciples of  democracy  are  so  far  recognized  as  to 
lead  to  sustained  effort  to  shape  the  policy  of  the 
government  according  to  public  opinion.  The 
political  party  may  be  described  as  an  organ  of 
public  opinion.  In  a  pure  despotism  or  in  a  gov- 
ernment based  upon  force,  political  parties  do  not 
exist.  In  Russia  there  are  no  party  organizations. 
Russian  citizens  who  would  protect  themselves 
from  tyranny  or  who  would  reform  the  government 
may  form  secret  societies,  or  they  may  form  revo- 
lutionary factions.  They  do  not  form  a  party  and 
openly  appeal  to  the  opinion  of  their  fellow-citizens 
for  a  redress  of  grievances.  In  a  despotism  there 
may  be  political  factions  contending  for  the  chief 
place  in  the  government.  These  factions  may 
be  of  long  duration ;  they  may  hold  together  with 
much  tenacity,  and  they  may  exert  an  immense 
influence  upon  the  policy  of  the  government ;  yet 
they  do  not  constitute  political  parties  as  the  term 
is  used  in  the  modern  democratic  State.  The 
political  faction  does  not  become  the  political  party 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

until  there  is  an  open,  conscious  appeal  to  the  body 
of  the  citizens  as  the  source  of  power  and  influence. 
When  this  stage  has  been  reached,  the  despotic 
government  is  at  an  end,  and  the  State  is  well 
advanced  toward  democracy. 

As  in  the  experience  of  States  there  have  been 
all  stages  between  despotism  and  democracy,  so 
there  are  all  gradations  between  the  political  faction 
and  the  political  party.  From  the  days  of  Magna 
Carta  in  England  to  the  era  of  the  Reform  Act  of 
1832,  there  were  at  all  times  political  factions  con- 
tending for  power.  During  all  that  time  there  was 
some  sort  of  appeal  to  the  masses  of  the  people  for 
support ;  but  at  no  time  was  there  a  continuous, 
conscious  recognition  of  the  people  as  the  ultimate 
source  of  power.  The  appeal  was  rather  to  the 
interest  or  to  the  prejudice  of  a  class,  or  in  sup- 
port of  some  sort  of  special  privilege,  and  not  to  a 
body  politic  conscious  of  supreme  power.  In  this 
political  contention  there  was  much  to  suggest  the 
political  party,  much  that  tended  to  develop  the 
party ;  but  the  essential  characteristic  of  the  mod- 
ern party  was  lacking.  In  the  wars  of  the  Red  Rose 
against  the  White,  opposing  factions  contended  for 
power.  If  one  was  more  popular  than  the  other,  it 
was  not  because  there  was  an  open,  conscious  ap- 
peal to  a  clearly  defined  popular  demand.  During 
the  Tudor  century  England  became  divided  between 
two  hostile  religious  camps,  Catholic  and  Protestant, 
each  contending  for  the  control  of  the  government. 
While  there  was  here  much  to  suggest  the  modern 


THE    MODERN    POLITICAL   PARTY 

party  in  the  continuous  appeal  to  religious  opinion 
or  religious  prejudice,  there  was  still  little  sugges- 
tion that  the  people  were  the  source  of  power. 

During  the  century  of  the  Stuarts  the  approach 
toward  the  ideal  of  the  modern  party  was  much 
more  marked.  The  recognition  of  religious  opin- 
ion was  continued  and  was  more  intelligent,  and  a 
distinct  political  issue  was  introduced.  The  divine 
right  of  kings  was  pitted  against  the  contention 
that  kings  were  subject  to  the  laws  of  Parliament. 
During  the  heat  of  strife  the  distinct  idea  was  in- 
troduced that  the  House  of  Commons,  as  represent- 
ing the  nation,  was  above  kings  and  lords.  Yet, 
notwithstanding  all  this,  the  strife  of  the  century 
has  in  it  much  more  to  remind  one  of  the  earlier 
factious  contests  than  of  a  modern  appeal  to  the 
country  upon  the  dissolution  of  Parliament.  Cava- 
liers and  Roundheads  fought  for  power  much  as 
did  the  followers  of  the  Red  Rose  and  the  White 
two  hundred  years  earlier.  Only  most  advanced 
thinkers  seriously  thought  of  leaving  the  settle- 
ment of  political  disputes  to  the  peaceful  count  of 
the  citizens  of  an  enfranchised  nation ;  yet  there 
was  political  conduct  which  suggested  such  a  pos- 
sibility. At  least,  we  get  from  this  period  the 
names  of  two  great  political  parties  which  remain 
to  the  present  day.  During  the  later  years  of  the 
reign  of  Charles  II.  intense  excitement  prevailed 
over  the  prospect  of  the  succession  of  a  Catholic 
king.  The  party  opposed  to  the  accession  of  James 
was  anxious  to  have  the  king  call  a  Parliament,  that 

3 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

action  might  be  taken  to  forestall  that  misfortune. 
So  they  persuaded  the  people  to  overwhelm  the 
king  with  petitions  for  the  assembling  of  Parlia- 
ment. The  friends  of  James  likewise  sent  up 
petitions  expressing  disapproval  of  the  conduct 
of  their  enemies.  One  class  received  the  name 
"petitioners,"  and  the  other  was  called  "abhor- 
rers."  Later,  the  petitioners  received  the  name 
of  Whigs,  and  the  abhorrers  were  called  Tories. 
\J  We  thus  get  the  two  great  party  names,  and  it  is 
an  interesting  fact  that  the  names  came  into  use 
in  connection  with  events  that  strongly  resemble 
an  appeal  to  the  country. 

It  was  many  years,  however,  before  these  names 
were  used  to  designate  political  parties  in  the 
modern  sense.  After  the  Revolution  of  1688, 
Whig  rule  was  almost  continuous  for  seventy 
years.  During  all  that  time  there  was  a  dis- 
puted succession  to  the  English  crown.  The 
Whigs  were  committed  to  the  support  of  the 
house  of  Hanover,  while  many  of  the  Tories 
favored  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts.  Few  citi- 
zens had  the  right  to  vote,  and  the  great  body  of 
the  nation  were  neither  Whigs  nor  Tories.  Whigs 
and  Tories  were  simply  hostile  factions  contend- 
ing for  power.  While  the  monarchs  were  Whigs, 
Whigs  for  the  most  part  held  the  offices.  After 
the  accession  of  George  III.,  in  1760,  the  succes- 
sion was  no  longer  disputed.  Now  the  monarchs 
were  Tories,  and  for  another  seventy  years  there 
was  almost  continuous  Tory  rule.  During  this 

4 


THE   MODERN    POLITICAL   PARTY 

long  period  of  a  hundred  and  forty  years,  England 
was  ruled  first  by  a  Whig  oligarchy  and  then  by  a 
Tory  oligarchy.  Majorities  were  secured  rather 
by  bribery  and  corruption  than  by  persuasion  and 
appeal  to  public  opinion.  The  organizations  bear- 
ing the  party  names  were  not  organs  of  public 
opinion.  Not  until  liberal  Tories  united  with 
liberal  Whigs  and  made  a  successful  appeal  to 
public  opinion  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
nation  did  political  parties  in  England  assume 
their  modern  characteristics.  The  Reform  Act 
of  1832  was  really  in  its  characteristics  and  re- 
sults the  Great  Revolution.  The  so-called  Revolu- 
tion of  1688  was,  as  Burke  maintained,  a  revolution 
prevented,  or  at  least  it  was  a  revolution  arrested. 
The  Act  of  1832  was  a  revolution  accomplished. 
Since  this  act  there  is  no  longer  a  doubt  that  politi- 
cal power  rests  with  the  people.  Only  those  may 
govern  who  are  authorized  to  govern  by  conscious 
act  of  the  people. 

The  revolution  of  1832  marks  a  fundamental 
change  in  the  so-called  political  parties.  They 
lose  the  characteristics  of  mere  political  factions 
contending  for  power  and  assume  the  character- 
istics of  conscious  organic  agencies  of  the  people 
for  the  attainment  of  good  government.  Coinci- 
dent with  this  occurs  a  perceptible  change  in 
party  organization.  Liberal  Tories  become  perma- 
nently united  with  Whigs.  Conservative  Whigs 
desert  their  party  and  go  over  to  the  opposition ; 
while  the  alternate  names,  Liberal  and  Conserva- 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

tive,  are  introduced.  At  the  same  time  each  party, 
by  whatever  name  it  is  designated,  comes  more 
and  more  consciously  to  rest  for  support  and 
authority  for  action  upon  the  opinion  of  the 
people.  It  was  the  late  Lord  Randolph  Church- 
ill who,  I  believe,  invented  the  phrase  "  Tory- 
Democracy."  This  phrase  expresses  and  was 
intended  to  express  the  great  revolution  accom- 
plished in  English  politics.  The  phrase  links  the 
name  of  the  old  political  faction,  whose  members 
were  willing  to  die  for  their  faith  in  the  divine 
right  of  kings,  with  the  name  which  expresses  the 
divine  right  of  the  people.  And  in  this  change  the 
political  faction  has  become  the  political  party. 

To  say  that  the  political  party  is  an  organ  of 
public  opinion  is  to  give  a  very  inadequate  defini- 
tion. The  press,  the  pulpit,  the  platform,  are  all 
in  their  several  ways  organs  of  public  opinion. 
Public  opinion  has  organs  innumerable.  Hence, 
merely  to  call  the  political  party  such  an  organ, 
does  not  define  it.  It  does,  however,  assist  in  dis- 
tinguishing the  political  party  from  the  political 
faction,  and  when  this  distinction  has  been  made 
clear,  we  have  gone  a  long  way  toward  the  true 
comprehension  of  the  political  party.  The  politi- 
cal faction  relies  upon  force  rather  than  upon 
public  opinion.  It  is  a  characteristic  of  despotic 
government.  The  modern  party  cannot  exist  in  a 
despotism,  because  in  such  a  State  there  can  be  no 
field  for  the  free  play  of  public  opinion.  In  so 
far  as  the  party  is  developed  in  a  State,  the  essen- 

6 


THE   MODERN    POLITICAL   PARTY 

tial  principles  of  despotism  have  given  place  to  the 
opposing  principles  of  democracy.  The  political 
faction  aims  at  the  control  of  the  powers  of  the 
State  by  the  use  of  force :  the  appeal  is  to  fear 
rather  than  to  reason  and  conscience.  Just  as  the 
modern  party  cannot  exist  in  a  despotism,  so  the 
political  faction  cannot  exist  in  a  fully  developed 
and  consistent  democracy.  The  faction  contra- 
dicts the  fundamental  principle  of  democracy  as 
the  party  contradicts  the  fundamental  principle  of 
despotism.  There  is,  however,  one  thing  in  com- 
mon between  the  faction  and  the  party.  Each 
aims  at  the  control  of  the  supreme  power  of  the 
State.  The  faction  aims  at  supreme  power  from 
personal  motives,  and  the  triumphant  faction  is, 
in  its  very  nature,  a  personal  government.  The 
party  aims  at  the  control  of  supreme  power  through 
the  sacrifice  of  personal  motives  for  the  sake  of  the 
common  weal.  The  party  represents  the  entire 
State  ;  it  denies  special  privilege  ;  it  aims  to  do 
that  which  is  best  for  all  classes.  If  all  in  a  State 
were  of  one  opinion  as  to  what  was  best,  there 
would  be  neither  faction  nor  party.  Parties  exist 
because  men  differ  in  opinion  as  to  what  policy  is 
for  the  common  good.  The  existence  of  a  politi- 
cal party  implies  that  there  is  at  least  one  other 
body  of  similar  organization,  and  that  each  organi- 
zation is  seeking  to  discover  and  to  carry  into  effect 
the  policy  best  adapted  to  promote  the  general 
welfare.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  natural 
that  there  should  be  at  a  given  time  only  one 

7 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

political  faction  in  a  State.  The  faction,  seeking 
power  from  personal  motives,  is  naturally  pitted 
against  the  government.  The  party,  on  the  other 
hand,  seeks  power  as  an  organ  of  public  opinion, 
and  its  purpose  is  the  control  of  the  agencies  of 
government  in  the  interest  of  the  common  weal. 

Political  parties  are  peculiarly  adapted  to  the 
transition  stage  from  despotism  to  democracy. 
While  the  party  cannot  exist  in  a  despotism,  it 
comes  into  existence  through  the  political  faction, 
which  is  a  characteristic  of  despotism.  As  the 
faction  comes  to  look  more  and  more  to  the  peo- 
ple for  support,  it  gradually  makes  itself  an  agency 
for  the  expression  of  the  will  of  the  people  and 
it  thus  becomes  a  party.  A  government  in  the 
hands  of  a  political  faction  holds  power  often  at 
the  risk  of  the  lives  and  property  of  the  chief 
officers.  A  government  in  the  hands  of  a  political 
party  holds  power  at  the  risk  of  sacrificing  the 
good  opinion  of  the  people.  A  government  in  the 
hands  of  a  party  is  a  perpetual  notice  to  the  public 
that  all  reasonable  demands  will  be  met  or  the 
officers  will  vacate  .their  positions  and  give  place 
to  those  who  are  assumed  to  be  more  nearly  in 
harmony  with  the  prevailing  opinion  in  the  State. 

As  compared  with  government  by  political  fac- 
tion, government  by  party  accomplishes  a  great 
saving  of  human  life  and  immense  economies 
through  accumulated  experience  and  wisdom.  The 
leaders  of  factions  in  despotic  governments  die 
young;  they  are  often  cut  off  when  their  experi- 

8 


THE   MODERN    POLITICAL   PARTY 

ence  would  be  most  valuable  to  the  State.  Under 
the  political  party  it  is  possible  for  an  officer  to  be 
many  times  politically  decapitated  while  still  living 
to  a  green  old  age,  increasing  in  wisdom  and  dis- 
cretion at  every  stage.  Viewed,  then,  from  the 
standpoint  of  that  which  it  displaces,  the  political 
party  is  a  great  labor-saving  as  well  as  life-saving 
invention. 

Many  thousand  years  belong  to  the  history  of 
despotism.  That  of  democracy  has  only  a  few 
decades.  The  political  party  may  fill  an  impor- 
tant and  a  necessary  place  in  the  transition  from 
despotism  to  democracy  and  may  still  form  no 
essential  part  of  a  fully  developed  democracy. 

The  political  party  must  be  distinguished  also 
from  an  organization  devoted  to  the  propagation 
of  certain  doctrines.  Like  the  political  faction,  the 
party  aims  always  at  the  exercise  of  governmental 
power.  The  Fabian  Society  of  England  is  not  a 
political  party.  The  Socialists  of  Germany  are 
organized  to  control  elections  and  to  gain  control 
of  the  legislature;  they,  therefore,  constitute  one 
of  the  political  parties  of  GeVmany.  Here,  again, 
it  is  not  easy  always  to  maintain  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  party  and  an  organization  devoted  to  the 
promotion  of  political  opinions.  By  imperceptible 
gradations  the  one  organization  may  pass  into  the 
other.  The  Hebrew  prophets  stood,  as  a  class, 
apart  from  the  government,  but  they  stood  pre- 
pared to  denounce  the  unlawful  acts  of  kings  and 
priests,  and  to  lay  down  the  law  for  their  guidance. 

9 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

The  prophet,  as  a  prophet,  was  not  a  ruler  and  he 
could  not  become  a  ruler.  The  prophet  was  a  man 
who  held  himself  apart  from  the  responsibilities  of 
government :  he  was  a  preacher :  it  was  his  busi- 
ness to  point  out  the  iniquities  of  rulers  and  to  warn 
the  people  of  impending  danger.  If  the  prophet 
should  himself  become  a  ruler,  then  where  would 
be  the  preacher  ?  Yet,  on  rare  occasions,  this  did 
actually  happen.  The  prophet  found  himself  so 
placed  as  actually  to  assume  the  responsibilities  of 
governing.  But  the  prophets,  as  a  class,  were 
political  preachers.  At  all  times  they  exerted  an 
immense  influence  upon  the  government,  and  it 
was  often  a  controlling  influence.  Schools  of 
prophets  were  organized  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
fluencing political  conduct,  yet  such  an  organiza- 
tion was  neither  a  political  faction  nor  was  it  a 
political  party.  It  differed  from  the  faction  in  that 
the  prophets  did  not  aim  at  the  exercise  of  political 
power.  It  resembled  the  party  in  that  the  proph- 
ets did  constantly  appeal  to  public  opinion  for 
the  purpose  of  influencing  political  conduct.  In 
all  progressive  States  there  have  been  men  who 
corresponded  to  the  Hebrew  prophets  :  men  who 
have  kept  themselves  aloof  from  the  responsibili- 
ties of  governing,  and  who  have  yet  pointed  out  to 
the  people  the  faults  of  rulers.  In  all  progressive 
States  it  has  likewise  been  the  habit  of  rulers  to 
kill  their  prophets,  and  in  after  years  to  curry  favor 
with  the  people  by  garnishing  their  tombs. 

During  the  later  Hebrew  history,  there  arose 
10 


THE   MODERN   POLITICAL   PARTY 

classes  of  citizens  distinguished  by  definite  and 
contradictory  teachings.  The  most  noted  of  these 
were  the  Pharisees  and  the  Sadducees.  These 
names  represent  neither  political  factions  nor 
political  parties.  They  designate,  rather,  bodies 
of  men  drawn  together  by  common  beliefs  and 
opinions,  which  common  beliefs  and  opinions 
greatly  modified  and  often  controlled  their  politi- 
cal conduct.  The  Pharisee  was  not  chiefly  con- 
cerned with  the  control  of  political  power ;  he  was 
chiefly  concerned  with  the  promotion  of  certain 
doctrines.  The  political  party  aims  chiefly  at  the 
control  of  political  power,  and  at  the  same  time  it 
aims  to  gain  and  hold  power  by  giving  effect  to 
certain  doctrines  and  beliefs.  If  you  combine  in 
one  the  political  faction  aiming  at  the  control  of 
political  power,  and  the  society  aiming  at  the  reali- 
zation in  the  State  of  certain  political  views  as  ex- 
pressing the  prevailing  wish  of  the  citizens,  you 
will  have  a  political  party. 

The  party  should,  moreover,  be  distinguished 
from  a  privileged  class  contending  for  its  own 
class  interests.  Both  in  past  history  and  in  pres- 
ent political  conduct  may  be  discerned  a  close 
relation  between  the  political  party  and  the  privi- 
leged class  seeking  its  own  interest.  The  political 
party,  however,  makes  its  appeal  to  the  entire  body 
politic  while  it  aims  to  promote  the  general  wel- 
fare. The  history  of  special  classes  contending 
for  privilege  is  a  part  of  the  history  of  political 
faction  rather  than  of  that  of  political  parties.  This 

ii 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

struggle  of  the  classes  fighting  on  their  own  behalf 
has  tended  to  develop  the  democratic  State ;  but 
this  has  arisen  chiefly  from  the  realization  of  the 
deadly  effects  of  class  contests  upon  the  welfare 
of  all  classes.  On  the  other  hand,  the  long  train- 
ing which  large  bodies  of  citizens  have  undergone 
in  standing  together  for  class  privilege  has  been 
of  no  small  advantage  in  enabling  men  to  work 
together  effectively  for  the  promotion  of  the  gen- 
eral welfare. 

During  the  Middle  Ages  the  constant  strife 
between  clergy  and  feudal  lords,  between  lords 
and  kings,  between  landlords  and  tenants,  and 
between  lords  and  townspeople,  all  resulted  in 
drilling  large  bodies  of  citizens  to  habits  of  cooper- 
ation for  the  attainment  of  political  ends,  and  in 
this  way  was  of  great  and  far-reaching  importance 
in  the  preparation  of  the  world  for  modern  democ- 
racy. Out  of  the  struggle  for  class  interests  arose 
the  guilds  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  towns  and  rural 
districts,  as  well  as  the  many  religious  societies 
and  other  organizations.  These  all  gave  men 
experience  in  voluntary  cooperation  for  a  common 
end ;  they  were  of  immense  value  in  political 
education.  A  famous  contest  arose  in  Italy  and 
Germany  which  strongly  suggests  the  modern 
political  party.  I  refer  to  that  between  Guelphs 
and  Ghibellines.  At  times  these  names  undoubt- 
edly represented  opposing  principles  in  politics, 
certain  phases  in  the  contest  between  Church  and 
State.  Yet  for  the  most  part  the  conflict  was 

12 


THE   MODERN    POLITICAL   PARTY 

between  rival  dynasties,  or  between  conflicting 
classes,  or  between  rival  sections  of  the  country. 
Or  the  names  Guelphs  and  Ghibellines  degener- 
ated into  mere  factional  terms  with  no  meaning  at 
all  except  as  names  of  opposing  bodies  of  men 
contending  for  power. 

The  political  party,  therefore,  is  not  a  political 
faction  and  it  is  not  an  organization  for  the  propa- 
gation of  political  doctrines,  though  it  has  much 
in  common  with  both  these.  Neither  is  the  party 
to  be  confused  with  the  class  organized  for  the 
promotion  of  class  interests.  The  ideal  party 
aims  at  the  equal  advantage  of  all  classes. 

The  political  party,  as  the  term  is  now  used,  is 
an  institution  of  recent  development.  Party  life 
in  America  began  during  the  closing  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  In  England  what  we  know 
as  the  political  party  cannot  be  assigned  to  an 
earlier  date  than  that  of  the  Reform  Act  of  1832. 
National  parties  appear  in  Switzerland  with  the 
working  of  the  democratic  constitution  of  1848. 
In  the  other  States  of  western  Europe  political 
parties  have  arisen  as  the  States  have  one  by  one 
modelled  their  constitutions  after  that  of  England. 

The  form  of  party  organization  is  in  each  State 
determined  by  local  and  peculiar  conditions.  In 
the  States  of  Europe,  apart  from  England  and 
Switzerland,  appears  a  party  system  having  certain 
characteristics  common  to  all.  It  may  be  described 
as  the  group  system  of  party  organization.  In  the 
legislature  no  one  party  ever  controls  a  majority 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 


of  the  votes  of  various  party  groups.  The  Cabinet 
does  not  represent  a  party ;  it  represents  a  group 
of  parties  which  for  the  time  being  agree  to  act 
in  harmony.  When  the  Cabinet  is  no  longer  able 
to  obtain  its  necessary  majorities,  it  resigns  office 
and  another  is  formed  capable  of  combining  the 
party  groups  in  such  a  way  as  to  secure  majorities. 
There  may  be  a  dozen  organizations,  each  with  its 
own  party  name  and  each  standing  for  some 
special  political  opinion  or  for  some  special  class 
interest.  The  groups,  however,  tend  to  divide  into 
two  main  combinations,  so  that  when  the  Cabinet 
resigns,  the  premiership  is  likely  to  go  to  the  leader 
of  the  chief  party  in  the  group  accustomed  to  vote 
against  the  retiring  government.  The  premier 
who  resigns  office  is  likely  to  appear  as  the  leader 
of  the  opposition  to  the  new  government. 

In  the  States  where  these  party  groups  prevail, 
democracy  has  attained  only  a  limited  recognition. 
The  so-called  political  party  has  in  these  States  a 
strong  resemblance  to  the  political  class  contend- 
ing for  class  interests.  The  majorities  are  made 
up  by  appeals  to  class  interest,  by  balancing  class 
against  class,  though  there  is  also  a  constant  refer- 
ence to  the  general  welfare  and  at  all  times  a  more 
or  less  conscious  appeal  to  public  opinion.  Each 
member  in  the  representative  assembly  is  chosen 
by  a  body  of  voters  composed  of  various  classes  in 
a  given  district.  The  best  illustrations  of  the  group 
system  of  party  organization  are  found  in  France, 
Italy,  and  Germany. 

14 


THE   MODERN   POLITICAL   PARTY 

The  simplest  type  of  party  government  has 
been  developed  in  England.  Here  the  people 
had  the  longest  continuous  training  in  habits  of 
cooperation  to  resist  the  encroachments  of  opposing 
political  factions,  in  the  practice  of  standing  to- 
gether in  defence  of  the  peculiar  privileges  of  the 
various  classes,  in  the  formation  of  societies  to 
promote  common  opinions.  After  the  Norman 
Conquest  two  political  factions  always  existed : 
one  in  league  with  foreign  powers,  in  France  or  at 
Rome,  and  the  other  opposing  foreign  interfer- 
ence. These  factions  naturally  appealed  for  sup- 
port to  the  various  classes.  Magna  Carta  was 
the  result  of  the  triumph  of  the  national  over  the 
alien  faction.  The  distinctively  factious  warfare 
broke  its  force  in  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  In  the 
meantime  the  centuries  of  training  on  the  part  of 
the  various  industrial  and  religious  classes  in  their 
contests  for  class  privileges  had  developed  among 
the  people  an  unsuspected  quality  which  was  now 
to  count  for  much. 

The  feudal  system  was  late  in  its  advent  into 
England,  and  it  never  became  thoroughly  estab- 
lished there  as  it  did  in  France.  There  was  con- 
scious unceasing  resistance  to  its  requirements  on 
the  part  of  every  distinct  industrial  class.  Instead, 
then,  of  crushing  out  political  freedom  by  its  bru- 
talities, the  system  in  England  tended  to  promote 
political  debate  and  to  develop  a  consciousness  of 
political  power  in  the  various  classes.  The  Great 
Charter  is  itself  a  catalogue  of  the  various  grounds 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

of  conscious  resistance  to  feudal  tyranny.  As 
compared  with  other  European  States,  England  is 
peculiar  in  this  :  the  political  factions  were  evenly 
balanced;  no  faction,  no  power,  was  allowed  to 
become  so  firmly  established  as  to  maintain  a  con- 
tinuous despotism.  There  were  always  classes 
which  more  or  less  understandingly  held  the 
balance  of  power. 

Societies  for  the  propagation  of  special  views 
were  more  advanced  in  England  than  on  the  Con- 
tinent. The  teaching  of  Wycliff  preceded  by  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  the  teaching  of  Luther, 
and  during  all  of  this  time  the  teaching  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  Reformation  was  kept  alive  by 
secret  societies  of  religious  advocates.  Thus  cen- 
turies of  training  in  industrial,  political,  and  reli- 
gious controversy  preceded  the  division  of  the 
ruling  classes  in  England  into  Whigs  and  Tories. 
No  sooner  did  the  masses  of  the  people  become 
Protestant,  —  as  they  did  during  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  —  than  they  became  divided  into  war- 
ring sects.  There  was  always  a  High  Church 
party  which  tended  to  revert  to  Rome,  and  an 
extreme  radical  party  which  tended  to  exalt  the 
position  of  the  individual  believer. 

The  Whig  and  Tory  parties  arose  from  the 
fierce  controversy  between  the  House  of  Commons 
and  the  Stuart  monarchs,  yet  they  did  but  give 
new  form  to  ancient  factional  and  class  strife. 
After  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  which  closed  with  the 
accession  of  Henry  VII.,  1485,  there  were  no 

16 


THE   MODERN   POLITICAL   PARTY 

longer  dukes  and  earls  who  were  strong  enough 
to  lead  armies  against  the  king.  The  early  Tudor 
monarchs  looked  for  support  to  the  middle-class 
folk  in  the  country,  called  the  squirarchy,  while 
they  completed  the  political  degradation  of  the 
higher  nobility  and  the  higher  clergy.  The  old 
military  leaders  of  faction  disappeared,  and  the 
squire,  the  parson,  and  the  wealthier  classes  in 
towns  and  cities  came  into  positions  of  greater 
political  importance.  The  power  of  the  early 
Stuarts  was  broken  by  conflict  with  these  middle- 
class  folk,  who  were  represented  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  After  the  Puritan  Revolution,  during 
the  reigns  of  the  later  Stuarts,  there  was  a  distinct 
revival  of  political  leadership  in  the  hands  of  great 
lords  in  opposition  to  the  king.  The  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury  was  at  the  head  of  these,  and  he  was 
the  first  great  Whig  leader.  The  appearance, 
then,  of  the  Whig  party  may  be  viewed  as  in  a 
sense  a  revival  of  the  factious  leadership  in  the 
hands  of  great  lords  which  had  been  destroyed  by 
the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  The  great  Whig  lords 
looked  for  support  to  the  commercial  classes  in 
the  cities  and  to  the  middle  classes  upon  their  own 
estates ;  while  the  Tories  were  supported  by  the 
Established  Church  and  the  great  body  of  the  squir- 
archy. But  all  this  is  a  history  of  faction  and  class 
conflicts  rather  than  a  history  of  political  parties. 

That  which  has  given  its  distinctive  feature  to 
English  party  organization  is  the  institution  known 
as  the  English  Cabinet.     Upon  the  suggestion  of 
c  17 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

Sunderland,  William  III.  gave  the  Whig  statesmen 
the  leading  places  in  his  ministry,  because  at  the 
time  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons  were 
Whigs  and  it  thus  became  easier  to  secure  the 
cooperation  of  that  House.  Later,  when  the 
House  became  Tory,  the  ministry  was  modified  to 
please  the  Tories.  During  the  reign  of  Queen 
Anne  the  same  thing  happened.  With  the  advent 
of  the  house  of  Hanover,  both  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment were  Whig.  The  monarchs  were  Whigs 
because  many  of  the  Tories  favored  the  restoration 
of  the  Stuarts.  George  I.  did  not  understand  the 
English  language,  and  therefore  contracted  a  habit 
of  absenting  himself  from  the  meetings  of  his 
chief  ministers.  The  government  thus  fell  into 
the  hands  of  a  Whig  oligarchy  who  in  secret 
meeting  apart  from  the  king  determined  upon  the 
policy  of  the  government,  and  then  through  the 
prime  minister  secured  the  cooperation  of  the  king 
and  the  two  Houses.  In  this  way  the  powers 
of  government,  both  executive  and  legislative, 
came  to  be  centred  in  the  hands  of  a  secret  body 
of  the  high  executive  officers  of  State.  The  first 
two  Georges  were  Whigs  by  necessity,  because 
there  was  a  continuous  threat  of  Tory  revolution 
in  favor  of  the  Stuarts.  During  this  entire  time 
the  House  of  Lords  was  kept  Whig,  since  the 
kings  had  unlimited  power  to  create  new  peers. 
The  House  of  Commons  was  likewise  kept  con- 
tinuously Whig,  because  the  Cabinet  had  unlimited 
power  and  means  of  bribery. 

18 


THE   MODERN   POLITICAL   PARTY 

In  its  origin,  then,  Cabinet  government  meant 
a  government  of  a  political  faction  by  the  use  of 
corrupt  means.  The  Cabinet  is  a  secret  body  of 
the  chief  officers  of  State,  who  mutually  agree  to 
stand  or  fall  together  in  the  administration  of  pub- 
lic affairs.  They  all  belong  to  the  same  party  or 
faction,  and  the  government  of  the  Cabinet  is 
therefore  a  party  government,  or  a  government  of 
a  faction.  George  III.  was  a  Tory,  and  he  wished 
to  destroy  the  Cabinet  system  of  government.  He 
was,  however,  unable  to  do  this,  though  he  was  able 
through  his  control  of  the  means  of  corruption  to 
keep  in  power  a  Tory  Cabinet  during  the  greater 
part  of  his  reign.  As  few  persons  had  a  right  to 
vote,  it  was  comparatively  easy  to  make  the  House 
of  Commons  either  Whig  or  Tory  by  means  of 
office  or  money. 

We  thus  see  that  the  English  Cabinet  was 
formed  by  a  Whig  faction  contending  for  the  con- 
tinued possession  of  power.  The  Cabinet  was 
continued  by  a  Tory  faction  likewise  contending 
for  the  possession  of  power.  During  this  entire 
period  of  a  hundred  and  forty  years,  majorities 
were  secured  in  the  two  Houses  by  means  of 
bribery  and  by  various  forms  of  corrupt  practice. 
The  Whig  faction  restrained  and  controlled  the 
monarch  by  the  secret  organization  called  the 
Cabinet.  The  organization  of  the  faction  and 
the  organization  of  the  government  were  one  and 
the  same  thing.  Cabinet  government  was  a  gov- 
ernment by  a  compact,  organized  faction.  Under 

'9 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

the  last  two  Georges  the  Whig  machine  passed 
into  the  hands  of  a  Tory  faction.  It  no  longer 
restrained  the  monarch ;  on  the  contrary  it  vastly 
increased  his  power.  The  monarch  at  the  head  of 
a  Tory  faction  could  control  the  majorities  in  the 
two  Houses  by  corrupt  means  and  thus  make  him- 
self absolute.  It  was  the  realization  of  this  fact 
that  induced  liberal  Tories  to  unite  with  liberal 
Whigs  in  a  movement  to  create  a  large  incorrupti- 
ble voting  constituency.  By  this  act  the  old  Whig 
and  Tory  factions  became  the  Liberal  and  Con- 
servative parties. 

It  should  be  observed  that  there  was  no  change 
in  party  organization.  The  organization  of  the 
party  remained  identical  with  the  organization  of 
the  faction.  When  the  Liberal  party  is  in  power, 
the  Cabinet  is  the  party  machine.  At  the  same 
time  the  party  machine  of  the  Conservatives  con- 
sists of  a  like  number  of  statesmen  who  face  the 
Cabinet  members  in  the  two  Houses,  criticise 
their  conduct,  and  seek  to  persuade  the  voting 
constituency  in  England  that  they  could  them- 
selves do  the  work  of  governing  more  acceptably. 
Cabinet  government  as  understood  in  England  is 
party  government.  The  Cabinet  machine  is  the 
party  machine.  All  power  is  centred  in  the 
Cabinet,  and  the  Cabinet  as  the  head  of  a  political 
party  continues  to  govern  so  long  as  it  can  per- 
suade the  voters  to  keep  its  party  in  control  of 
the  House  of  Commons.  When  it  fails  to  do  this, 
it  resigns  office  in  a  body  and  the  leading  states- 

20 


THE   MODERN   POLITICAL   PARTY 

men  in  the  opposite  party  form  a  Cabinet.  Thus 
the  actual  government  and  the  actual  party  organi- 
zation become  one  and  the  same  thing.  The 
party  is  an  organ  of  public  opinion  because  the 
Cabinet  holds  office  only  as  it  wins  the  support  of 
the  voting  constituency.  In  no  other  country  is 
party  organization  so  simple,  so  easily  understood. 

The  English  or  Cabinet  System  of  party  govern- 
ment has  been  transplanted  to  Canada  and  to  the 
Australian  states.  The  group  system,  also,  which 
prevails  upon  the  European  Continent,  has  bor- 
rowed some  of  its  features  from  England.  But 
on  the  Continent  the  Cabinet  does  not  govern,  as 
in  England.  The  party  leaders  organized  as  a 
Cabinet  assist  a  monarch  or  some  permanent  un- 
changing executive  to  govern.  The  various  party 
groups,  therefore,  are  organized  not  to  govern,  as 
in  England,  but  to  influence  the  government. 

Switzerland  is  the  one  highly  democratic  State 
which  furnishes  ground  for  believing  that  party 
organization  may  ultimately  be  dispensed  with  in 
the  free  State.  True,  political  parties  have  ap- 
peared and  have  played  a  prominent  part  in  the 
transition  from  aristocracy  to  democracy;  but 
nothing  like  the  Cabinet  system  of  government 
has  appeared  in  Switzerland.  There  being  no 
Cabinet,  there  could  be  no  Cabinet  organization 
of  party  leaders.  On  the  other  hand,  Switzer- 
land has  created  no  elaborate  system  of  party 
machinery  for  nominating  and  electing  officers, 
as  in  the  United  States.  As  the  Swiss  have 

21 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

become  more  consciously  democratic,  they  have 
given  less  prominence  to  party  organizations. 
They  have  created  other  organs  of  public  opinion, 
which  in  a  sense  serve  as  a  substitute  for  political 
parties.  The  most  important  of  these  is  the 
referendum.  By  means  of  the  referendum  the 
people  themselves,  with  little  reference  to  party 
organization,  have  conducted  their  own  affairs. 
Again  and  again  has  it  happened  that  the  people 
have  continued  to  send  to  their  national  legislature 
a  majority  of  one  political  party,  while  they,  at  the 
same  time,  by  means  of  the  referendum,  approved 
the  policy  of  another  political  party.  Closely 
associated  with  the  referendum  is  the  popular 
initiative.  By  these  processes  the  people  rule 
with  little  reference  to  party  organization.  As 
democracy  grows  stronger  party  influence  grows 
weaker.  Some  of  the  Swiss  cantons  have  adopted 
a  system  of  proportional  representation  which 
does  indeed  recognize  party  organization ;  but  one 
of  the  chief  arguments  in  favor  of  this  policy  is 
that  it  tends  to  diminish  party  prejudices  and  thus 
to  remove  the  curse  of  partisanship. 

Party  organization  is  therefore  as  multiform  as 
is  the  organization  of  the  various  States. 


22 


CHAPTER   II 

ORIGIN  OF  THE  AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

POLITICAL  institutions  in  the  United  States  are 
to  a  considerable  extent  the  result  of  conscious 
acts  of  a  self-conscious  people.  There  are  many 
theories  as  to  the  origin  of  the  New  England  town, 
but  there  can  be  no  dispute  about  the  fact  that  this 
political  institution  was  set  up  nearly  three  hun- 
dred years  ago  by  people  who  knew  what  they 
were  doing.  The  same  is  true  of  the  institutions 
of  our  counties,  parishes,  and  cities.  The  first 
Americans  were  far  advanced  in  political  educa- 
tion and  experience,  and  they  had  a  clear  field  in 
which  to  work  out  their  own  ideas.  From  the 
beginning  there  were  two  main  lines  of  political 
activity.  There  was,  first,  some  sort  of  super- 
visory control  exercised  by  the  mother  country, 
which  exerted  an  influence  over  the  central  gov- 
ernment in  each  colony.  Then,  the  people  in 
each  colony,  with  little  control  or  guidance  from 
any  outside  source,  established  and  managed  their 
own  local  institutions  in  their  own  way.  From 
the  central  authority  came  efforts  to  impose  politi- 
cal institutions  from  above ;  these  were  success- 
fully resisted  through  efforts  of  the  people  to 

23 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

establish  and  maintain  institutions  of  their  own 
choice.  When  the  colonies  became  independent, 
they  created  for  themselves  state  governments, 
and,  as  a  crowning  act,  they  organized  a  govern- 
ment for  the  people  of  all  the  states.  So  that  at 
every  stage,  from  the  central  government  down 
and  from  the  local  governments  up,  there  was 
the  conscious  activity  of  a  self-conscious  people. 
The  result  has  been  a  complicated  system  of  arti- 
ficial governmental  machinery. 

The  American  party  system,  both  as  to  the 
manner  of  its  formation  and  as  to  its  form  of 
organization,  bears  a  close  analogy  to  the  gov- 
ernmental system.  In  the  evolution  of  the  party 
system,  there  were  movements  from  the  central 
authority  which  were  resisted  by  local  organiza- 
tions of  the  people.  The  result  has  been  a  vast 
system  of  artificial  party  machinery  corresponding 
in  its  chief  outlines  to  the  governmental  machin- 
ery. The  American  party  is  characterized  by  a 
complicated  organization,  as  is  the  government, 
and  both  have  a  common  origin. 

The  most  spectacular  part  of  our  party  organiza- 
tion grew  out  of  the'  obligation  to  choose,  once  in 
four  years,  a  President  and  a  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States.  The  framers  of  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution adopted  a  plan  for  the  accomplishment  of 
this  work  which  was  utterly  irrational  and  imprac- 
tical. Washington  was  made  President  by  common 
consent;  the  definite  action  was  merely  formal. 
But  at  the  third  presidential  election  sharp  differ- 

24 


ORIGIN   OF   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

ences  of  opinion  arose,  and  the  necessity  for  some 
sort  of  conduct  not  contemplated  by  the  Constitu- 
tion was  clearly  manifest.  At  the  fourth  election, 
in  1800,  machinery  had  already  been  devised  to 
supplement  the  Constitution  in  the  choosing  of 
President  and  Vice-President.  The  Congressional 
Caucus  —  composed  of  the  groups  of  members  in 
the  two  Houses,  and  representing  the  opposing 
political  opinions  of  the  day  —  had  appeared. 
These  caucuses  nominated  candidates  for  Presi- 
dent and  Vice-President.  They  persuaded  their 
political  friends  in  each  state  to  choose  presiden- 
tial electors  who  were  pledged  to  vote  for  the 
candidates  nominated  by  the  caucus.  So  well 
was  this  plan  carried  out  that  in  the  Republican 
party  the  caucus  candidates,  Jefferson  and  Burr, 
each  received  all  the  votes  of  the  electors  chosen 
by  the  party.  But,  while  each  had  a  large  major- 
ity of  all  the  electors,  neither  was  chosen  President. 
The  method  of  action  adopted  by  the  Constitution 
had  broken  down  at  the  first  real  trial.  The  Con- 
stitution made  it  impossible  for  the  people  to 
choose  a  President.  An  amendment  was  adopted 
to  remedy  this  defect.  Under  the  amended  Con- 
stitution, congressional  caucuses  continued  to  make 
nominations  until  1824. 

The  congressional  caucus  did  a  work  which 
had  to  be  done  in  some  way.  Unless  some  pre- 
vious understanding  had  been  reached,  the  presi- 
dential electors  who  met  in  their  several  states  to 
elect  the  President  would  usually  fail  to  accomplish 

25 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

their  task.  It  would  be  a  mere  accident  if  any 
one  candidate  received  a  majority  of  the  votes. 
The  election  would  hence,  according  to  the  Con- 
stitution, devolve  upon  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives. But  it  was  not  the  intention  of  the  framers 
of  the  Constitution  that  the  Executive  should  be 
chosen  by  the  legislature;  neither  was  it  their 
intention  that  the  Chief  Magistrate  should  be 
chosen  by  popular  vote.  Yet,  out  of  the  plan 
proposed,  one  or  the  other  of  these  results  was 
inevitable.  By  means  of  the  organization  of  politi- 
cal parties  and  party  nominating  machinery,  the 
choice  of  the  President  is  now  determined  by 
popular  election.  Had  the  people  been  content 
to  leave  the  selection  of  candidates  for  the  presi- 
dency in  the  hands  of  the  congressional  caucus, 
the  final  result  of  the  method  would  have  been 
wholly  different.  That  state  of  mind  which  would 
be  implied  by  satisfaction  with  the  congressional 
nomination  would  naturally  have  resulted  in  the 
avoiding  of  a  popular  election  for  the  choosing  of 
the  presidential  electors.  The  result  would  have 
been  candidates  nominated  by  members  of  the 
national  legislature  and  the  electors  chosen  by 
the  legislatures  of  the  various  states.  The  popu- 
lar election  would  have  been  avoided ;  but  this 
would  have  been  a  revolution  equally  at  variance 
with  the  intention  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. It  would  have  threatened  the  position  of 
the  independent  Executive.  The  growth  in  the 
various  states  of  the  habit  of  choosing  electors 

26 


ORIGIN   OF   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

by  popular  vote  implied  dissatisfaction  with  the 
method  of  congressional  nomination. 

There  was  from  the  beginning  decided  opposi- 
tion to  the  caucus.  In  the  year  1800,  when  both 
of  the  parties  made  their  nominations  by  caucus, 
the  act  was  done  in  secret  and  the  opposition 
press  branded  it  as  conspiracy.  So  well  was  the 
secret  kept  that  in  the  case  of  one  of  the  parties 
there  was  a  doubt  as  to  the  fact  until  confession 
was  made  twenty-four  years  later.  At  the  next 
election  the  proceedings  were  more  open,  but 
there  was  still  decided  opposition  to  the  method. 
In  1808,  when  the  chairman  of  the  Republican 
nominating  caucus  for  1804  assumed  the  duty  of 
issuing  a  call  for  a  like  caucus,  he  incurred  severe 
criticism  from  his  own  party.  The  caucus  was 
seen  by  this  act  to  be  becoming  an  established 
institution.  The  decaying  Federal  party  tried  to 
fasten  odium  upon  the  Republican  party  by  seek- 
ing to  create  the  impression  that  the  caucus  was  a 
peculiar  and  characteristic  feature  of  that  party. 
In  1812  disaffected  Republicans  who  were  opposed 
to  the  war  with  England  united  with  Federalists 
in  the  support  of  DeWitt  Clinton  as  against  Madi- 
son. In  the  interests  of  this  candidacy  a  confer- 
ence of  Federalist  leaders  from  eleven  states  was 
held  in  the  city  of  New  York,  in  which  some  his- 
torians have  seen  a  prophecy  of  the  future  nomi- 
nating convention.  This  conference,  however, 
was  not  a  nominating  convention.  Clinton  had 
already  been  placed  in  nomination  by  a  caucus  in 

27 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

the  New  York  legislature.  The  aim  was  to  secure 
the  more  cordial  support  of  Federalists  who  had 
made  no  nomination. 

Before  the  congressional  caucus  was  held  in 
1816,  the  understanding  had  already  been  reached 
that  Monroe  was  the  accepted  candidate  of  the 
Republican  party.  When  a  call  for  a  caucus  was 
issued,  the  friends  of  Monroe  viewed  the  act  as 
opposed  to  his  interests,  and  some  of  his  support- 
ers absented  themselves  from  the  meeting.  Mon- 
roe, however,  received  the  caucus  nomination  over 
Crawford.  He  was  reflected  four  years  later  with- 
out a  caucus  nomination,  and  the  last  nominating 
caucus,  that  of  1824,  put  forward  the  name  of 
William  H.  Crawford.  • 

The  system  was  never  popular.  It  was  toler- 
ated merely  because  it  accomplished  a  necessary 
work  for  which  no  better  way  had  been  agreed 
upon.  It  was,  moreover,  well  adapted  to  the  time 
in  which  it  originated.  The  consciousness  of 
party  life  was  at  first  not  generally  diffused. 
Only  members  of  Congress  were  then  sharply 
divided  into  parties.  It  was  but  natural  that  they 
should  initiate  measures  for  the  selection  of  can- 
didates in  harmony  with  their  own  views. 

Along  with  the  congressional  caucus  for  nominat- 
ing candidates  for  the  presidency,  state  legislative 
caucuses  arose  in  the  various  states  for  the  nomi- 
nation of  state  officers.  There  were  no  railways ; 
population  was  sparse  and  the  roads  were  bad.  It 
was  natural  under  all  the  circumstances  that  mem- 

28 


ORIGIN    OF   AMERICAN    PARTY   SYSTEM 

bers  of  the  legislatures  should  take  a  leading  part 
in  the  nomination  of  candidates.  It  was  likewise 
natural  that  there  should  be  decided  and  increas- 
ing objection  to  this  method  as  the  sense  of  democ- 
racy and  the  sense  of  party  responsibility  became 
more  widely  diffused.  In  a  state  legislative  caucus 
for  the  nomination  of  a  state  officer,  the  district 
which  at  the  time  was  represented  by  a  member 
of  the  opposite  party  would  have  no  share  in  the 
nomination.  This  defect  was  early  perceived  in 
some  of  the  states,  and  special  delegates  from 
such  districts  were  admitted  to  membership  in  the 
caucus.  Such  a  meeting  would  naturally  suggest 
the  nominating  convention  of  a  later  date.  The 
legislative  nominating  caucus  did  not,  either  in 
the  state  or  in  the  general  government,  attain  to 
the  dignity  of  an  established  institution.  The 
caucus  which  nominated  Monroe  did,  indeed,  by  a 
small  majority,  carry  a  resolution  approving  the 
practice  of  nominating  candidates  by  members  of 
Congress,  and  declared  that  it  ought  to  be  contin- 
ued. It  was  not  continued,  however,  and  for  many 
years  there  was  no  regular  official  way  for  making 
nominations. 

The  congressional  nominating  caucus  failed  at 
a  time  when  party  organization  was  itself  in  a 
state  of  confusion.  The  Federal  party  ceased  to 
exist  at  the  close  of  the  war  with  England,  and  no 
clearly  defined  party  appeared  to  take  its  place. 
Candidates  for  the  presidency  were  now  put  in 
nomination  by  caucuses  in  state  legislatures. 

29 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

In  some  instances  nominations  were  made  by 
joint  resolution  of  the  two  houses  of  the  state 
legislature.  Nominations  were  also  made  by  local 
conventions,  by  public  meetings,  by  individuals, 
by  newspapers.  These  acts  were  each  and  all 
informal  and  inconclusive.  For  a  time  the  con- 
gressional nomination  was  accepted  as  a  conclusive 
act.  It  was  so  far  regular  and  had  the  stamp  of 
party  official  approval.  During  the  period  of  con- 
fusion in  party  organization  after  the  disbanding  of 
the  Federal  party,  there  was  no  recognizable  sys- 
tem of  presidential  nomination.  But  with  the  new 
alignment  of  parties,  a  new  method  of  nomina- 
tion made  its  appearance.  During  the  year  1831, 
the  Anti-Masons  held  a  national  convention  for 
the  purpose  of  nominating  candidates  for  President 
and  Vice-President.  During  the  following  year 
such  conventions  were  held  by  the  National 
Republicans  and  by  the  Democrats. 

To  understand  the  origin  of  the  national  nomi- 
nating convention  demands  a  knowledge  of  a 
wholly  new  set  of  facts.  The  legislative  caucus 
grew  out  of  the  fact  that  party  strife  first  mani- 
fested itself  in  the  legislatures.  The  caucus  was 
an  attempt  to  give  the  party  organic  form  from 
above,  from  the  standpoint  of  central  authority. 
This  attempt  failed.  Enduring  party  organiza- 
tion grew  as  the  government  jgrew ;  it  began 
with  the  town  and  county  and  proceeded  step 
by  step  to  the  central  government.  Intelligent 
and  liberty-loving  peoples  in  all  lands  have 

30 


ORIGIN   OF  AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

been  accustomed  to  form  local  and  voluntary 
organizations  for  the  promotion  of  the  common 
weal.  There  are  Nihilists  in  Russia;  before 
the  French  Revolution  the  people  had  become 
organic  through  Jacobin  Clubs,  and  before  the 
American  Revolution  the  American  people  had 
grown  in  the  sense  of  organic  union  through  a 
system  of  local  Patriot  Societies.  /Enduring  party 
organization  in  America  has  arisen  out  of  the 
habit  of  the  local  association  of  the  common 
people  for  the  promotion  of  common  ends.; 
Strangely  enough  the  word  caucus  which  congress- 
men used  to  designate  their  meeting  was  first 
applied  to  a  local  voluntary  association  in  the  town 
of  Boston.  There  is  doubt  as  to  the  etymology  of 
the  term,  but  the  commonly  accepted  theory  traces 
its  origin  to  the  father  of  Samuel  Adams,  who  was 
engaged  in  ship-building.  It  is  said  that  he  was 
wont  to  meet  with  twenty  or  more  of  the  laboring 
men  (calkers),  to  deliberate  as  to  the  interests  of 
the  town  and  agree  upon  nominations  for  local 
offices.  This  was  the  original  caucus.  This  story 
may  be  accepted  as  giving  a  satisfactory  account 
of  the  origin  of  the  name.  It  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  sort  of  conduct  here  described  grows 
naturally  out  of  a  system  of  choosing  officers  by 
popular  election  with  an  extended  suffrage.  Men 
interested  in  the  promotion  of  certain  measures 
and  policies  band  themselves  together  to  accom- 
plish their  purpose.  It  was  a  cardinal  duty  of  the 
Patriot  Societies  before  the  Revolutionary  War 

31 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

to  see  to  it  that  the  most  trustworthy  men  were 
placed  in  charge  of  the  local  offices. 

The  local  caucus  grew  naturally,  and  to  a  great 
extent  without  observation.  No  reliable  history  of 
the  process  can  ever  be  written.  It  is  a  necessary 
incident  to  the  development  of  a  people  driven  to 
rely  upon  themselves  while  without  a  reliable  and 
trusted  central  government.  The  Americans  had 
no  central  government  of  any  kind.  Their  colonial 
governments  were  in  the  hands  of  their  enemies,  or, 
at  least,  they  were  not  to  be  depended  upon.  The 
people  could  always  control  their  counties,  towns, 
and  cities.  They  could  band  themselves  together 
in  local  voluntary  associations  whereby  they  could 
hold  their  local  governments  against  a  hostile 
colonial  government.  So  soon  as  they  got  control 
of  the  central  colonial  governments  in  all  depart- 
ments they  transformed  each  colony  into  a  "  free 
and  independent  state."  With  the  creation  of  the 
free  state  the  local  habits  and  associations  which 
had  accomplished  the  task  did  not  cease  to  exist. 
The  enduring  feature  in  American  party  organiza- 
tion came  from  these  habits  and  associations. 

When  Thomas  Jefferson  found  himself  in  seri- 
ous and  protracted  controversy  with  the  adminis- 
tration of  Washington,  he  encouraged  the  formation 
of  Democratic  Clubs  to  resist  the  encroachments 
of  the  central  government  upon  local  governments 
and  upon  personal  liberties.  These  clubs  were 
similar  to  the  Jacobin  Clubs  in  France  and  to  the 
Patriot  Societies  in  America.  The  supporters  of 

32 


ORIGIN    OF   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

the  administration  did  not,  to  any  considerable 
extent,  organize  local  societies  to  strengthen  their 
policy.  The  result  was  that  the  Republicans  or 
the  party  of  Jefferson  became  locally  organized 
throughout  the  land,  while  the  Federal  party  never 
was  thus  locally  organized.  It  was  largely  because 
of  this  local  organization  that  the  Republican  party 
endured  and  the  Federal  party  became  extinct. 
All  permanent  party  organizations  have  arisen  out 
of  the  party  of  Jefferson.  When,  during  the 
administration  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  a  party 
began  to  be  formed  called  National  Republicans, 
its  members  were  denounced  as  Federalists  by 
their  political  enemies;  and  when,  in  1834,  the 
same  party  took  the  name  Whig,  it  was  still  de- 
nounced as  Federal.  This  was  because  of  the 
popular  prejudice  which  was  associated  with  the 
name  Federalist.  "  To  revive  the  ghost  of  Feder- 
alism "  was  the  easiest  method  of  bringing  a  party 
into  reproach.  But  the  Whig  party  was  organized 
by  men  who  had  had  long  training  in  the  party  of 
Jefferson.  The  Whigs  first  called  themselves 
Republicans,  and  when  the  party  went  out  in  con- 
fusion, twenty  years  later,  its  members  again  found 
themselves  enrolled  either  in  a  Republican  or  a 
Democratic  party,  and  each  of  these  parties 
claimed  descent  from  the  party  of  Jefferson.  Jef- 
ferson was  both  a  Democrat  and  a  Republican. 
From  the  beginning  of  party  organization  he  was 
stigmatized  by  his  enemies  as  a  Democrat.  He 
called  himself  a  Republican  or  a  Democratic- 
D  33 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

Republican.  As  the  term  Democrat  became  a 
mark  of  honor  rather  than  of  reproach,  it  gradu- 
ally superseded  the  earlier  term.  When  Jefferson 
died,  in  1826,  that  branch  of  his  party  which  was 
crystallizing  around  the  leadership  of  Andrew 
Jackson  and  Martin  Van  Buren  commonly  bore 
the  name  Democrat.  The  Whigs  always  stoutly 
maintained  that  this  was  not  the  party  of  Jeffer- 
son. It  was  in  their  eyes  a  new  and  dangerous 
party  which  had  filched  the  name  of  the  party  of 
Jefferson.  The  Whigs  themselves  gloried  in  their 
alleged  political  descent  from  Jefferson.  They 
repudiated  with  scorn  the  term  Federal,  which 
their  enemies  sought  to  fasten  upon  them.  They 
looked  with  envious  eyes  upon  the  more  popular 
name  of  their  opponents.  The  first  national  Whig 
convention,  in  1839,  assumed  the  official  title  of 
"  Democratic  Whig  Convention."  From  this  it 
would  seem  that  the  Whigs  also  wished  to  filch 
the  name  Democrat;  but  it  was  not  long  before 
the  great  body  of  the  northern  Whigs  found  them- 
selves in  full  possession  of  the  good  old  Jefferso- 
nian  name,  Republican. 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake,  however,  to  con- 
clude that  the  party  of  Jefferson  endured  because 
it  was  more  fortunate  in  the  selection  of  names. 
It  endured  because  it  took  organic  form  in  har- 
mony with  its  political  environment.  The  Fed- 
ral  party  died  because  it  created  no  organs  in 
touch  with  the  people.  John  Adams,  writing  in 
1814,  about  the  time  of  the  disbanding  of  the  Fed- 

34 


ORIGIN   OF   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

eral  party,  said,  referring  to  the  political  conduct 
of  the  day,  "  They  have  invented  a  balance  of  all 
balance  in  their  caucuses.  We  have  congressional 
caucuses,  state  caucuses,  county  caucuses,  city  cau- 
cuses, district  caucuses,  town  caucuses,  parish  cau- 
cuses, and  Sunday  caucuses  at  church  doors ;  and 
in  these  aristocratic  caucuses  elections  have  been 
determined."  We  may  substitute  the  word  "con- 
vention" for  the  word  "caucus"  in  this  passage  and 
accept  it  as  a  prophecy  of  the  permanent  form  for 
party  organization  in  the  United  States.  The  word 
"  convention  "  was  already  in  use.  Caucus,  as  ap- 
plied to  a  legislative  body  assuming  the  nominating 
function,  was  already  a  term  of  reproach. 

The  nominating  convention  differs  from  the  legis- 
lative nominating  caucus  in  that  it  rests  upon  local 
organization  and  is  an  authorized  agent  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  party  chosen  for  the  purpose.  The  leg- 
islative caucus  was  an  unauthorized  body.  So  long 
as  its  acts  were  pleasing  to  the  body  of  the  party 
it  was  endured.  As  soon  as  there  was  developed 
intense  dissatisfaction  in  the  party  itself,  alternate 
methods  of  action  were  called  into  use.  In  1812 
there  was  strong  disapproval  of  the  war  policy  of 
the  administration.  This  was  felt  by  Republicans 
as  well  as  by  Federalists.  Madison  was  the 
caucus  nominee ;  De  Witt  Clinton  was  nominated 
by  other  agencies.  Peace  conventions  were  called 
in  various  states,  and  at  several  of  these  nomina- 
tions were  made  for  presidential  electors  in  the 
state. 

35 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

Local  conventions  had  grown  up  out  of  efforts 
to  secure  harmonious  party  action  between  differ- 
ent wards  of  a  city,  different  townships  in  a  county, 
and  different  counties  in  a  district.  As  early  as 
1813  an  extreme  Democratic  faction  in  New  York 
City  put  forward  a  definite  proposition  to  call  a 
state  nominating  convention  to  take  the  place  of 
the  legislative  caucus  in  the  nomination  of  a  candi- 
date for  governor.  A  few  years  later  such  a  con- 
vention was  called,  and  a  similar  system  grew  up 
in  other  states. 

At  the  time  Mr.  Adams  wrote  the  description  of 
party  machinery  given  above  there  would  soon 
have  been  created  a  complete  system  of  nominat- 
ing conventions  for  choosing  candidates  for  all 
offices,  from  that  of  road-master  to  president,  had 
there  not  been  an  arrest  of  the  normal  development 
of  party  life.  One  party  completely  collapsed. 
There  was  an  "  era  of  good  feeling,"  followed  by 
factional  strife  for  the  presidency  in  1824.  As 
normal  party  life  began  again  to  appear  under  the 
leadership  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  on  one  side, 
and  Clay  and  J.  Q.  Adams  on  the  other,  it  was 
found  that  there  had  been  already  developed  in 
the  various  states  a  nominating  system  to  take  the 
place  of  the  legislative  caucus.  In  1828  there 
was  no  need  of  formal  nominations.  Jackson  had 
been  continually  a  candidate  for  eight  years,  and 
Adams,  by  common  consent  in  harmony  with 
uniform  custom  up  to  that  date,  was  a  candidate 
for  reelection.  When  the  Anti-Masons  called  a 

36 


ORIGIN   OF  AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

national  convention  in  1831,  for  the  purpose  of 
nominating  candidates  for  the  presidency  and 
vice-presidency,  they  did  not  call  into  existence  a 
new  nominating  agency.  They  simply  applied 
to  federal  politics  an  agency  already  in  use  in 
the  states.  Each  of  the  regular  parties  held 
conventions  the  following  year.  Since  1832  the 
Democrats  have  uniformly  made  nominations  for 
the  presidency  by  National  Convention.  The 
Whigs  nominated  by  other  agencies  for  the  elec- 
tion of  1836,  but  used  the  convention  method 
ever  after. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  American  party  organ- 
ization is  the  result  of  two  movements :  one  from 
the  central  government  down,  and  the  other  from 
the  local  institutions  up.  The  ideal  perfected 
system  includes  all  the  people  as  members  of  one 
or  other  of  two  great  national  organizations  with 
local  agents  in  every  township  and  ward  in  the 
country. 

The  party  organs  resemble  the  governmental 
institutions  in  that  each  is  the  creation  of  a  self- 
conscious  people  seeking  to  manage  its  own 
affairs,  and  each  important  governmental  institu- 
tion has  its  corresponding  party  agency.  For  the 
general  government  there  is  the  national  com- 
mittee in  each  national  party.  This  committee 
is  appointed  by  the  National  Convention  which 
meets  once  in  four  years  to  nominate  the  national 
candidates.  A  corresponding  state  committee  is 
appointed  in  each  state  by  a  state  convention 

37 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

whose  duty  it  is  to  look  after  the  interests  of  the 
party  within  the  state  and  to  cooperate  with  the 
national  committee  in  the  promotion  of  party 
harmony.  Then,  in  each  county,  township,  and 
ward  are  corresponding  local  party  committees  to 
look  after  local  party  interests  and  to  cooperate 
with  state  and  national  committees.  Between  the 
states  and  the  general  government  there  have  been 
rivalry  and  conflict,  but  between  the  state  party 
organization  and  .the  national  party  organization 
there  has  always  been  harmony  and  cooperation. 
The  political  parties  have  been  the  great  uniting 
and  binding  factors  of  the  nation.  Each  of  the 
great  parties  has  had  its  organs  in  every  neighbor- 
hood, watching  over  each  other  for  the  common 
good,  to  make  it  sure  that  the  commonwealth 
shall  not  suffer  serious  harm. 

This  development  of  the  party  machinery  has 
required  much  time.  The  Federal  party  failed, 
as  we  have  seen,  to  become  locally  organized,  and 
it  therefore  ceased  to  be  a  party.  It  was  not 
until  1852  that  a  National  Whig  Convention  was 
called  in  the  now  recognized,  regular  official  way ; 
and  no  sooner  did  the  party  become  thoroughly 
organized,  with  a  perfected  system  of  national, 
state,  and  local  conventions,  than  it,  too,  through 
the  perversity  of  circumstances,  went  to  pieces. 
The  first  Republican  Convention,  that  of  1856, 
lacked  much  of  official  regularity.  The  Demo- 
cratic party  has  experienced  a  regular,  continu- 
ous progress  toward  the  perfection  of  its  party 

38 


ORIGIN   OF   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

machinery.  The  Civil  War  was  a  seriously  dis- 
turbing factor  in  respect  to  the  evolution  of  party 
machinery.  Yet  in  the  face  of  every  obstacle 
party  organization  has  gone  on  growing  more  and 
more  perfect,  more  and  more  indispensable. 


39 


CHAPTER   III 

PARTY  ISSUES 

CITIZENS  differ  in  opinion  as  to  what  is  best  for 
the  State.  This  fact  is  fundamental  in  the  forma- 
tion of  political  parties.  There  are  shades  of 
opinion  corresponding  to  each  independent  ob- 
server and  thinker.  The  dividing  of  many  millions 
of  persons  into  two  parties  does  not  enable  the 
individual  to  see  his  own  views  prevail,  but  it 
does  enable  the  great  body  of  the  citizens  to 
exercise  a  more  or  less  effective  choice  as  to  cer- 
tain prevailing  tendencies  which  may  be  deemed, 
at  the  time,  of  primary  importance.  No  individual 
gets  his  will,  but  all  in  each  party  may  have  a 
modifying  influence  over  the  result. 

The  bases  for  differences  are  innumerable.  Some 
are  subjective,  some  are  objective. 

Some  men  are  controlled  by  what  goes  on  in 
their  own  minds :  they  live  a  predominantly  sub- 
jective life.  They  are  the  poets,  the  dreamers, 
the  enthusiasts,  the  prophets,  and  the  fanatics. 
Others  live  an  objective  life.  They  are  slow  to 
believe  in  the  reality  of  anything  which  they  do 
not  touch,  and  taste,  and  handle.  The  dreamers 
and  the  materialists  do  not  understand  each 
other.  Extreme  types  in  these  diverse  classes 

40 


PARTY   ISSUES 

are  utterly  incapable  of  reaching  a  basis  of  agree- 
ment or  of  mutual  understanding.  This  difference 
in  the  human  type  is  never  consciously  a  cause  of 
party  division,  and  it  is  well  that  this  is  so.  A 
state  divided  into  two  hostile  parties,  the  conduct 
of  one  partly  controlled  by  experiences  drawn 
from  the  inner  consciousness  of  its  members,  and 
the  conduct  of  the  other  guided  wholly  by  external 
appearances,  would  be  an  intolerable  bedlam.  Long 
before  that  condition  of  society  is  reached  in  which 
the  democratic  State  becomes  possible  or  even  think- 
able, a  large  body  of  citizens  have  been  trained  to 
habits  of  recognizing  distinct  and  characteristic  vir- 
tues in  each  of  these  types.  No  actual  party  is  ever 
formed  which  does  not  contain  a  fair  proportion  of 
both  the  dreamers  and  the  men  of  affairs. 

While  this  separation  of  men  into  two  classes, 
those  who  are  predominantly  subjective  and  those 
who  are  predominantly  objective,  can  never  become 
consciously  a  basis  for  party  division,  the  fact  of 
this  difference  has  much  to  do  with  actual  party 
organization.  The  tyrannies  of  earth  have  been 
resisted  and  broken  by  men  who  have  agreed  in 
holding  some  religious  conviction  in  the  face  of 
every  external  appearance ;  or  by  the  individual 
prophet  and  preacher,  who,  careless  of  every- 
thing but  his  deep  sense  of  integrity,  has  defied 
torture  and  death.  The  introspective  man  is 
naturally  an  individualist.  He  is  careless  of  insti- 
tutions. He  may  be  a  giant  in  the  work  of  destroy- 
ing venerable  evils,  while  in  the  equally  necessary 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

work  of  setting  up  a  more  righteous  order  he  may 
be  an  obstructionist.  Elijah  the  Tishbite  was  a 
preacher  and  only  that.  He  actually  believed  that 
he  was  himself  the  only  righteous  man  in  his  nation. 
In  the  setting  up  of  a  righteous  State  on  this  earth 
such  a  man  is  an  obstacle.  He  has  to  be  gotten 
out  of  the  way  before  the  first  step  can  be  taken  in 
righteous  institutional  State-building.  The  Lord 
told  Elijah  that  the  sort  of  men  that  he  needed  for 
the  work  of  the  hour  were  Haziel,  and  Jehu,  and 
Elisha;  the  last  a  prophet  with  a  much  more 
accommodating  and  adjustable  conscience. 

The  prophet  or  the  preacher  who,  without  refer- 
ence to  any  external  condition  or  fact,  gives  utter- 
ance to  his  vision  of  a  more  righteous  order,  leads 
the  way  to  reform.  The  immediate  and  positive 
work  of  the  preacher  is  that  of  a  destroyer  of  evil, 
yet  the  preacher  draws  to  himself  men  who  live  in 
the  actual,  external  world,  and  who  are  interested 
in  the  establishment  of  improved  external  condi- 
tions. Thus  the  preacher  and  the  men  of  affairs 
are  found  in  close  alliance.  They  may  constitute 
the  active  element  in  the  more  radical  political 
party  of  the  day.  The  prophet,  the  preacher,  and 
the  poet  come  naturally  to  be  associated  with 
radicalism  in  politics.  One  or  the  other  of  the 
political  parties  is  more  sensitive  to  the  need  of 
change,  less  closely  wedded  to  the  established 
order.  To  such  a  party  men  who  are  burdened 
with  a  new  idea  more  properly  belong.  This  is 
one  of  the  oldest  and  most  fundamental  of  party 

42 


PARTY  ISSUES 

distinctions,  the  party  of  change  is  the  radical,  or 
liberal  party;  the  party  devoted  to  the  established 
order  is  described  as  conservative.  But  in  any 
actual  conservative  party  there  are  idealists  as 
well  as  realists  :  there  are  conservative  fanatics  as 
well  as  radical  fanatics.  The  fanatical  conserva- 
tive is  likely  to  draw  more  largely  from  some 
imaginary  past  condition  ;  the  conservative  wor- 
ships more  naturally  with  his  face  to  the  east. 
It  not  infrequently  happens  that  the  same  individ- 
ual may  at  different  stages  in  his  life  be  an  aggres- 
sive radical  and  a  bigoted  conservative.  As  a 
young  man  he  may  become  possessed  of  the  new 
ideas  of  the  day  in  Church  or  State,  and  he  may 
give  himself  to  the  new  doctrines  in  the  face  of 
persecution.  Later  in  life  he  may  come  to  take  a 
personal  satisfaction  in  a  new  external  order  which 
he  imagines  is  in  part  the  workmanship  of  his 
own  hands.  When  this  new  external  order  comes 
to  be  interfered  with  by  other  young  men  with 
new  ideas,  the  whilom  radical  appears  as  a  bigot 
and  a  persecutor.  This  phenomenon  is  so  common 
that  radicalism  is  associated  with  youth  and  con- 
servatism with  old  age.  The  youth  has  not  yet 
projected  his  personality  into  actual  institutions. 
The  old  man  has  done  so,  or  at  least  imagines 
that  he  has. 

There  is  an  analogous  tendency  in  party  organi- 
zations. A  party  of  reform  becomes  identified 
with  an  external  condition  of  its  own  creation, 
and  it  readily  changes  to  a  party  of  defence 

43 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

and  resistance  of  change.  After  the  Civil  War 
the  Republican  party  became  identified  with  a 
policy  of  reconstruction.  When  that  policy  fell 
into  disrepute  the  party  resisted  change.  In  an 
old  country  like  England,  where  there  are  vener- 
able institutions,  such  as  the  Crown,  the  House 
of  Lords,  and  the  Church,  which  have  for  cen- 
turies been  the  objects  of  attack  and  encroach- 
ment on  the  part  of  a  growing  constituency,  it 
seems  quite  natural  that  one  of  the  parties  should 
be  known  as  a  party  of  defence  and  the  other 
as  a  party  of  aggression.  This,  in  the  main,  has 
been  the  case,  yet  there  have  been  many  instances 
of  confusion  at  this  point ;  Conservatives  have  pro- 
moted radical  measures  and  Liberals  have  stood 
for  the  established  order.  In  the  United  States 
it  is  still  more  difficult  to  array  political  parties 
against  each  other  on  the  basis  of  conservatism 
and  radicalism.  A  few  years  ago  I  received  a 
letter  from  a  lecturer  in  Edinburgh  University  ask- 
ing me  which  of  the  two  great  American  parties 
ought  to  be  classified  as  the  conservative  party 
after  the  English  analogy.  I  was  wholly  unable  to 
answer  the  question  myself  and,  appealing  to  my 
neighbors,  I  found  them,  one  and  all,  in  a  state  of 
equal  ignorance.  I  felt,  however,  that  I  was  on 
firm  ground  in  stating  that  the  old  Federal  party 
of  a  century  ago  bore  obvious  analogy  to  the 
English  conservative  party  of  to-day,  while  the 
party  of  Jefferson  was  analogous  to  the  liberal 
party.  It  is  traditional  to  associate  some  such 

44 


PARTY   ISSUES 

relation  with  the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic 
party  of  Jackson.  But  since  the  Civil  War  who 
can  say  which  party  is  conservative  and  which  is 
radical  ? 

There  are  many  personal  qualities  which  are  to 
be  taken  account  of  in  the  study  of  political  parties. 
Some  men  are  by  nature  timid,  some  are  courage- 
ous ;  some  are  selfish,  others  are  public-spirited ; 
some  are  conscientious,  others  are  unscrupulous. 
Though  these  and  many  other  qualities  have  much 
to  do  with  party  life,  still,  parties  are  not  formed 
chiefly  through  the  influence  of  the  mere  personal 
qualities  of  their  members.  It  can  never  happen 
that  the  good  men  will  all  be  found  in  one  party 
and  the  bad  men  in  another.  The  attempt  to 
form  parties  upon  the  basis  of  abstract  righteous- 
ness is  an  irrational  proceeding  which  tends  to 
engender  prejudice  and  promote  corruption.  Par- 
ties arise  chiefly  out  of  the  honest  differences  of 
opinion  in  regard  to  some  political  institution  or 
some  line  of  State  policy. 

In  a  federal  government  like  that  of  the  United 
States,  the  very  structure  of  the  government  forms 
a  basis  for  party  division.  The  business  of  gov- 
erning is  partitioned  into  two  parts  and  distributed 
to  two  separate  and  independent  agencies.  This 
is  the  theory  of  the  case,  but  the  government  of 
an  actual  State  does  not  admit  of  any  clear  and 
positive  line  of  partition  of  functions.  One  gov- 
erning agency  is  sure  to  encroach  upon  the  other. 
Our  first  great  national  debate  was  upon  the 

45 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

question  of  adopting  the  Constitution  proposed  by 
the  Convention  of  1787.  On  the  one  side  were 
arrayed  those  who  believed  in  a  strong  central 
government ;  against  them  were  pitted  those  who 
believed  that  their  well-tried  local  and  state  gov- 
ernments were  in  danger.  This  difference  of 
opinion  grew  inevitably  out  of  the  very  nature  of 
the  government  proposed.  The  friends  of  the 
Constitution  were  called  Federalists  and  its  enemies 
were  called  Anti-Federalists.  These  are  not  names 
of  political  parties  ;  they  are  names  of  two  parties 
to  a  great  national  debate  over  a  specific  question. 

With  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  ten  amend- 
ments were  added  guarding  the  independence  of 
the  states  and  the  rights  of  the  people.  Now, 
those  who  had  been  Anti-Federalists  naturally  be- 
came identified  with  the  Republican  party  which 
sprang  up  during  Washington's  administration. 
Anti-Federalists  had  opposed  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution,  because  they  feared  encroachment 
upon  their  local  liberties ;  but  the  Republicans 
were  the  peculiar  friends  and  supporters  of  the 
Constitution,  because  they  looked  to  the  written 
document  as  a  defence  for  their  state  rights.  The 
Federalists,  who  had  secured  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution,  attached  less  importance  to  the  letter 
of  the  Constitution,  because  they  believed  in  a 
strong  central  government  which  could  be  best 
attained  by  a  liberal  construction  of  the  words  of 
the  document. 

This  broad  line  of  party  distinction  has  persisted 


PARTY  ISSUES 

throughout  our  entire  history.  It  was  especially 
prominent  before  the  Civil  War.  The  written 
Constitution  was  made  a  party  platform  for  one 
of  the  parties,  while  the  other  party  supported  a 
policy  which  involved  the  exercise  of  many  powers 
not  named  in  the  document.  The  Virginia  and 
Kentucky  Resolutions  gave  a  specific  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Constitution  from  the  old  Republican 
or  state  rights  standpoint.  These  resolutions 
were  made  a  part  of  the  platform  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party  in  1856  and  of  that  of  the  secession 
party  four  years  later.  Since  the  Civil  War  the 
question  of  state  rights  has  ceased  to  be  a  domi- 
nant issue.  The  time  may  even  come  when  it 
will  be  impossible  to  detect  any  difference  even  in 
the  prevailing  tendencies  in  the  two  parties  on 
this  question. 

The  issue  which  grew  out  of  the  character  of 
the  American  federal  system  of  government  had, 
in  the  beginning,  obvious  relations  to  clearly  dis- 
tinguishable subjective  conditions.  During  the 
great  debate  over  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution 
the  Anti-Federalists  stood  for  the  established  order. 
The  local  governments  which  they  defended  were 
old  and  familiar.  The  proposed  strong  central 
government  was  an  innovation.  From  this  point 
of  view  Anti-Federalists  were  conservative.  The 
will  of  the  nation  having  been  declared,  Anti-Feder- 
alists immediately  accepted  the  Constitution  and 
assumed  a  positive  and  aggressive  attitude  as  to 
the  interpretation  of  the  document.  Party  organi- 

47 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

zation  grew  out  of  this  aggressive  attitude.  The 
old  Republican  party  has  never  been  called  con- 
servative, or  at  least  it  was  not  so  regarded  during 
its  lifetime.  Its  leaders  sympathized  with  the 
French  Revolution ;  they  sympathized  with  the 
extreme  democratic  doctrines  of  the  day.  Jeffer- 
son's party  was  regarded  as  the  radical  party.  It 
believed  in  a  wide,  even  a  revolutionary,  departure 
from  past  ideals  in  government ;  it  represented  a 
new  order  in  society.  The  Federalists,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  admirers  of  the  English  Consti- 
tution. They  opposed  both  the  theory  and  the 
practices  of  the  French  Revolutionists.  They  were 
essentially  conservative.  The  party  stood  for  the 
older  ideas  of  government  by  the  few,  the  strong, 
and  the  capable.  Federalists  feared  the  masses ; 
they  did  not  believe  in  government  by  the  mob. 

A  hundred  years  ago  the  modern  idea  of  govern- 
ment by  the  people  consciously  acting  in  an  or- 
ganic capacity  scarcely  existed.  Democrats  as 
well  as  conservatives  looked  upon  government  as 
a  thing  of  force  and  repression.  Democracy 
was  then  a  sort  of  negation  of  government.  The 
followers  of  Jefferson  opposed  a  strong  central 
government,  because  they  looked  with  suspicion 
upon  all  government.  They  denned  liberty  as 
the  absence  of  government.  They  believed  in 
local  cooperation  in  town  and  county  because  this 
was  not  government ;  it  was  not  a  thing  imposed 
by  an  outside  force.  Government  being  defined 
as  something  imposed  upon  the  people  from  with- 

48 


PARTY  ISSUES 

out,  there  should  be  as  little  of  it  as  possible. 
The  widest  possible  range  should  be  reserved  for 
the  individual,  for  the  voluntary  cooperation  of 
the  people.  This  laissez  faire  view  of  govern- 
ment has  had  a  marked  influence  upon  our  party 
history. 

In  1896  the  party  calling  itself  the  party  of 
Jefferson  held  two  conventions.  The  one  which 
met  in  Chicago  adopted  a  platform  in  favor  of 
making  large  use  of  governmental  power  in  doing 
things  for  the  benefit  of  people.  Mr.  Bryan  was 
made  the  candidate  of  this  aggressive  wing  of  the 
party.  Later,  a  convention  of  Democrats  was 
called  at  Indianapolis  with  the  avowed  intention 
of  defeating  Mr.  Bryan.  The  Indianapolis  con- 
vention represented  the  good  old  Jeffersonian  doc- 
trine, that  government  should  keep  out  of  the  way 
of  the  people  and  let  them  do  what  they  wished 
for  themselves.  Jefferson  was  a  radical  and  a 
revolutionist  because  his  views  were  comparatively 
new  and  out  of  harmony  with  the  established  order 
in  the  older  states  of  his  day.  The  Indianapolis 
Convention,  in  so  far  as  it  reflected  the  views  of 
Jefferson,  was  ultra  conservative,  because  individual 
initiative  and  voluntary  association  are  now  in  pos- 
session of  a  large  field  in  the  industrial  world,  and 
it  is  that  condition  which  is  now  being  seriously 
challenged.  Jefferson  represented  the  masses  as 
against  the  wealthy,  the  aristocratic,  and  the  privi- 
leged classes.  The  Jeffersonian  survivor  stands 
hand  in  glove  with  wealth  and  privilege.  In  the 
E  49 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

meantime,  there  have  been  great  changes  in  the 
theory  of  government.  Government  is  viewed, 
not  as  an  agency  of  repression,  but  rather  as  an 
agency  to  enable  the  people  to  accomplish  more 
easily  and  more  perfectly  the  things  they  desire. 
The  people  desire  universal  education  ;  they  turn 
to  the  one  voluntary  society  which  includes  them 
all,  namely,  the  State,  and  by  means  of  the  State 
they  accomplish  their  purpose. 

In  the  time  of  Jefferson  the  democrat  was 
almost  compelled  to  take  the  laissez  faire  view  of 
government,  because  government  was  defined  as 
repression.  But  if  government  is  itself  made  an 
essential  and  effective  agency  for  the  creation  of 
the  perfect  man,  then  one  can  be  a  democrat  and 
still  believe  in  an  enlarged  sphere  for  the  State. 
Democrats  therefore  actually  hold  absolutely  con- 
tradictory views  as  to  the  policy  of  the  State, 
because  they  adopt  contradictory  definitions  of 
government.  There  are  those  who  still  define  gov- 
ernment as  repression.  To  be  a  democrat  with 
such  a  definition  one  must  become  an  anarchist. 
This  principle  is  clearly  illustrated  by  Mr.  Franklin 
Smith,  in  an  article  in  the  Poptilar  Science  MontJdy 
for  November,  1899.  The  writer  believes  in  lib- 
erty and  defines  government  as  tyranny.  He 
therefore  finds  that  the  public  school  system  of 
the  United  States  is  the  most  dangerous  of  our 
institutions,  and  almost  equally  perilous  is  the 
postal  system.  If  the  people  are  to  gain  their 
liberties  they  must  wrest  both  of  these  institutions 

5° 


PARTY   ISSUES 

from  the  hand  of  the  State.  In  an  unguarded 
moment,  Mr.  Smith  admits  that  the  State  may 
exercise  some  police  power,  yet,  as  he  recovers 
himself,  he  sees  that  this  too  would  be  better  at- 
tended to  by  voluntary  association.  Then  there 
would  be  in  the  State  no  law  but  conscience. 
This,  it  will  be  observed,  is  the  position  of  the 
philosophic  anarchist.  The  socialist  goes  to  the 
opposite  extreme.  He  is  less  individualistic,  less 
subjective.  He  sees  that  the  progress  of  man 
toward  righteousness  must  be  through  the  attain- 
ment of  more  just  external  relations.  Every 
change  which  increases  cooperation  and  the  inter- 
dependence of  the  members  of  society  is,  from  the 
socialist's  point  of  view,  a  clear  gain.  The  State 
is  the  one  all-embracing  agency  for  mutual  cooper- 
ation. Man  approaches  perfection  as  he  becomes 
absorbed  and  satisfied  in  a  harmonious  State. 
Between  the  extreme  anarchist  and  the  extreme 
socialist  views  there  are  many  possible  shades 
of  opinion  which  the  democrat  may  hold.  The 
fact  that  believers  in  democracy  hold  such  contra- 
dictory views  certainly  lends  weight  to  the  assump- 
tion that  the  Greeks  were  right  in  maintaining  that 
in  some  way  the  individual  man  and  the  State  are 
linked  together,  and  that  the  perfect  man  involves 
the  perfect  State. 

Our  federal  system  of  government  is  itself  the 
result  of  a  compromise  between  men  who  took  ex- 
treme views  in  favor  of,  or  in  opposition  to,  strong 
and  centralized  government.  Thus,  differences  in 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 


natural  temperament  expressed  themselves  in  in- 
stitutions. Until  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War 
political  differences  turned  largely  upon  efforts  to 
harmonize  the  institutions.  From  that  time  this 
factor  disappears  from  politics,  or  manifests  itself 
in  a  disposition  to  enlarge  or  to  restrict  the  field 
of  government. 

Party  life  has  also  been  much  affected  by  class 
differences.  In  the  great  debate  over  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  the  rural,  agricultural 
population  was  pitted  against  the  commercial 
classes  in  the  cities ;  it  was  country  against  city. 
The  ruling  class  in  the  centres  of  population 
favored  the  Constitution  along  with  a  strong  cen- 
tral government,  while  the  farmers  resisted  them 
and  looked  with  suspicion  upon  the  growing 
wealth  of  townspeople.  The  money  power  was 
already  feared  and  dreaded.  Jefferson  formed  his 
party  out  of  the  suspicious  rural  population.  There 
has  never  been  a  time  in  our  history  when  this 
feeling  toward  wealth  has  not  been  a  perceptible 
factor  in  party  divisions.  How  much  of  our  party 
history  has  been  determined  by  the  question  of 
United  States  banks  or  by  some  form  of  the  money 
question.  And  in  all  the  episodes  of  party  history 
there  has  been  a  manifest  tendency  to  divide  along 
the  early  lines  of  trading  communities  against 
farming  communities.  The  original  Republicans 
were  enemies  of  the  United  States  bank.  When 
the  party  was  revived  under  the  leadership  of 
Jackson  it  was  still  the  question  of  a  United  States 

52 


PARTY   ISSUES 

bank  that  overshadowed  all  others.  Jackson  had 
the  support  of  the  farmers  ;  the  friends  of  the  bank 
were  chiefly  from  the  commercial  classes. 

The  division  between  country  and  city  has  been 
a  good  deal  confused  by  the  rise  of  a  distinct 
manufacturing  interest.  When  the  Constitution 
was  adopted  there  was  no  important  manufactur- 
ing class.  When,  later,  manufacturers,  as  a  dis- 
tinct class,  began  to  make  an  impression  upon 
politics,  they  favored  protective  tariffs.  This  policy 
was  opposed  by  some  belonging  to  the  commercial 
class  who  favored  free  trade.  The  manufacturers 
succeeded  to  a  remarkable  degree  in  winning  the 
support  of  the  agricultural  class  in  the  free  states. 
The  introduction  of  the  tariff  question  thus  tended 
to  divide  the  agricultural  classes,  and  also  to  divide 
the  wealthy  classes  in  the  centres  of  population. 

Before  the  War,  however,  the  tariff  question  was 
presented  as  a  temporary  issue.  Protection  was 
advocated  as  a  temporary  measure  in  order  to  diver- 
sify industry,  and  was  intended  to  be  followed  by 
a  policy  of  free  trade ;  this  forecast  was  in  process 
of  fulfilment  when  the  War  broke  out.  After  the 
close  of  the  War  a  new  doctrine  of  protection  was 
invented.  Manufacture  became  more  and  more 
centralized  in  the  hands  of  great  corporations. 
Previously  to  the  War  wage-earners  as  a  class  had 
made  little  impression  upon  our  national  politics, 
but  with  the  advent  of  the  great  business  corpora- 
tion there  appears  a  distinct  wage-earning  class  to 
be  reckoned  with.  Protectionists  have  won  the 

53 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

support  of  large  sections  of  laborers  by  the  advo- 
cacy of  high  wages  and  by  maintaining  at  the  same 
time  that  a  protective  tariff  is  necessary  to  shield 
the  American  laborer  from  competition  with  the 
pauper  labor  of  the  Old  World.  This  position 
gave  rise  to  a  new  doctrine  of  protection.  Protec- 
tion to  diversify  industry  must  quickly  pass  away, 
but  protection  to  give  to  the  laborer  higher  wages 
is  a  different  matter.  No  date  can  be  fixed  when 
this  object  will  not  be  desirable.  Again,  the  pro- 
tection which  was  advocated  before  the  War  ap- 
plied to  only  a  few  lines  of  production  which  had 
been  selected  for  the  purpose  of  localizing  new 
industries ;  but  protection  to  raise  wages  applies 
equally  to  all  lines  of  production  in  which  there  is 
competition  with  other  countries.  The  new  doc- 
trine, therefore,  involves  the  advocacy  of  a  univer- 
sal and  perpetual  policy  of  protection.  At  the 
end  of  the  century  there  is  some  tendency  to  a 
recurrence  to  the  cleavage  between  the  rural  popu- 
lation and  the  cities.  At  least  there  has  been 
kept  up  throughout  the  century  an  active  prejudice 
against  banks  and  other  commercial  institutions. 

It  would  be  easy  to  extend  the  list  of  occasions 
for  party  divisions.  There  has,  for  instance, 
always  been  a  North  and  a  South  whose  diverse 
conditions  have  had  a  manifest  effect  upon  party 
life.  But  under  a  dual  party  system  the  bases  for 
division  cannot  be  numerous.  The  great  national 
organizations  are  formed  from  a  very  few  lasting 
distinctions.  As  to  the  multitude  of  minor  ques- 

54 


PARTY   ISSUES 

tions,  either  one  party  or  the  other  becomes  com- 
mitted to  a  particular  policy  by  accident,  as  it  were. 
There  was  no  reason  in  itself  why  the  party  of 
Jefferson  should  have  excelled  in  friendship  for 
France.  It  happened,  however,  just  at  the  time 
of  the  rise  of  that  party  that  the  Revolution  was 
in  progress  in  France.  France  was  "doing"  radi- 
cal politics  for  the  world,  and  the  sympathy  of  the 
radical  party  in  America  was  therefore  drawn  to 
her. 

To  recapitulate :  America  is  committed  to  the 
dual  party  system.  This  arises  from  the  elabo- 
rateness of  party  organization.  There  is  room  for 
the  two  machines  only.  The  one  personal  con- 
dition which  goes  farthest  in  explaining  the  basis 
of  dual  party  division  is  the  tendency  of  some 
men  to  live  a  subjective  life,  and  of  others  to  live 
an  objective  life.  The  subjective  man  is  by  nature 
an  individualist.  The  objective  man  has  a  pre- 
ferred tendency  to  exalt  the  importance  of  the 
visible,  institutional,  or  governmental  agency. 
Each  class  of  men  made  a  decided  impression 
upon  the  Constitution  of  1787.  There  was  a 
central  government  for  the  man  who  attached 
much  importance  to  visible  authority.  There  were 
the  guarded  local  institutions  to  placate  those  who 
attached  supreme  importance  to  personal  liberty. 
Traditionally,  one  party  has  ever  stood  for  the 
defence  of  the  central  government,  and  the  other 
party  has  been  the  guardian  of  local  liberties. 
Originally,  the  commercial  classes  stood  for  cen- 

55 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

tral  authority ;  but  so  far  as  the  commercial  class 
became  devoted  to  free  trade  it  tended  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  opposite  party.  The  manufacturers 
have  naturally  been  in  alliance  with  the  party 
most  favorable  to  central  authority.  With  the 
appearance  of  a  distinct  laboring  class  since  the 
Civil  War  the  protectionists  have  modified  their 
theory,  and  have  been  fairly  successful  in  securing 
the  votes  of  the  working  people  under  the  plea 
that  protection  tends  to  maintain  high  wages. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  SPOILS   SYSTEM  AND   PARTY  ORGANIZATION 

IN  a  despotic  government  offices  belong  to  the 
ruler.  Taxation  is  for  the  support  of  a  ruling 
class.  A  despotic  government  is  by  its  very 
nature  a  perpetual  conspiracy  against  the  people. 
All  the  offices,  all  the  patronage  of  the  State,  is 
directed  to  the  one  supreme  task  of  keeping  the 
people  in  subjection.  A  successful  despotism  is 
in  a  state  of  perpetual  victory  over  the  people,  and 
all  the  spoils  of  office  belong  to  the  victors.  In 
such  a  government  the  people  may  be  better  off 
than  they  would  be  without  it.  They  may  be 
wholly  incapable  of  governing  themselves.  In  a 
given  condition  it  may  be  better  that  the  people 
should  be  compelled  to  support  such  a  govern- 
ment rather  than  submit  to  the  alternative  condi- 
tion of  cutthroat  anarchy. 

But  a  despotism  is  unstable.  It  either  tends  to 
destroy  itself  by  dehumanizing  its  subjects,  or  it 
tends  to  educate  a  larger  and  larger  portion  of  the 
people  to  habits  of  participation  in  the  responsi- 
bilities of  government.  In  a  progressive  despotism 
there  arise  factions  of  influential  subjects  who  in- 
fluence the  policy  of  the  State.  Often  such  a  fac- 

57 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

tion  will  succeed  in  wresting  the  offices  from  former 
occupants.  In  that  case  the  perquisites  of  office 
are  the  legitimate  spoils  of  the  victors.  This  is 
well  illustrated  in  the  history  of  the  Whig  and  the 
Tory  governments  of  England  previously  to  1832. 
Elections  were  carried  and  votes  were  secured  in 
Parliament  by  the  bribery  of  office.  But  with  the 
extension  of  the  franchise  a  new  principle  was  in- 
troduced. It  was  clearly  seen  that  the  use  of  the 
offices  to  carry  elections  could  not  coexist  with  an 
independent  voting  constituency.  The  two  parties 
then  by  common  consent  exercised  restraint  in  the 
use  of  patronage  until  a  law  was  passed  entirely 
removing  the  offices  in  the  civil  service  from  politi- 
cal influence.  So  long  as  the  spoils  system  pre- 
vailed, an  election  which  involved  a  change  of 
party  was  almost  equal  to  a  civil  war.  When  the 
parties  appealed  in  earnest  to  the  democracy  of 
England,  the  bribery  of  office  was  necessarily 
surrendered. 

Early  in  Washington's  administration  a  debate 
arose  over  the  power  of  the  President  to  remove 
from  office  in  the  civil  service.  One  of  the 
speakers,  opposed  to  leaving  this  power  in  the 
hands  of  the  President,  argued  that  the  power 
might  fall  into  the  hands  of  one  who  would  use  it 
to  put  in  office  his  personal  and  political  friends. 
To  this  James  Madison  replied  that  for  such  an 
abuse  of  power  the  Constitution  provided  an 
adequate  remedy.  A  President  who  should  thus 
abuse  his  position  would  be  subject  to  impeach- 

58 


PARTY   ORGANIZATION 

merit  and  removal  from  office.  This  sentiment 
controlled,  in  the  main,  the  conduct  of  our  Chief 
Magistrates  until  the  advent  of  Andrew  Jackson, 
in  1829.  The  spoils  system  came  into  American 
politics  along  with  a  more  radical  type  of  democ- 
racy. In  England  the  spoils  system  went  out  of 
politics  with  the  coming  in  of  democracy,  but  in 
America  the  advancement  of  the  masses  to  a  more 
conscious  participation  in  politics  is  associated  with 
the  introduction  of  the  bribery  of  office.  The 
explanation  of  this  contrast  between  American 
and  English  democracy  is  to  be  found  chiefly  in 
the  differences  in  party  organization  in  the  two 
countries. 

In  England  party  grew  directly  out  of  faction. 
The  victorious  Whig  faction  organized  itself  into 
a  secret  government  unknown  to  the  laws  of 
England.  This  secret  body  received  the  name 
"  Cabinet."  It  drew  to  itself  all  the  powers  of  gov- 
ernment. The  organization  of  the  government 
and  the  organization  of  the  faction  or  party  were 
one  and  the  same  thing.  There  was  no  party 
organization  apart  from  the  organization  of  the 
government.  The  Whig  faction  in  power  was  the 
government,  including  all  the  offices  in  the  civil 
service,  and  supported  by  a  continuous  majority 
in  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament.  The  Whig  fac- 
tion out  of  office  was  nothing  at  all  save  as  leading 
statesmen  held  together  as  critics  of  the  govern- 
ment, with  the  hope  of  regaining  control  of  the 
offices.  The  Cabinet,  in  the  hands  of  a  faction, 

59 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

was  an  organized  despotism.  It  required  the  con- 
tinued cooperation  of  the  monarch  to  maintain  the 
faction  in  power,  and  the  system  tended  more  and 
more  to  make  the  power  of  the  monarch  absolute. 
From  this  conclusion  there  was  no  escape  but  to 
appeal  to  the  democracy.  To  do  this  the  spoils  of 
office  must  be  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
monarch.  The  Cabinet  knew  no  way  of  removing 
patronage  from  the  hands  of  the  monarch  and 
retaining  it  themselves.  It  was  forced,  therefore, 
to  remove  that  power  altogether  from  the  domain 
of  politics.  With  the  civil  service  regulated  by 
law,  the  party  in  power  had  no  more  control  over 
voters  than  had  the  party  not  in  power.  Each 
had  an  equal  chance  to  persuade  the  voting  con- 
stituency to  vote  for  its  members.  In  England, 
the  one  party  machine  which  monopolizes  public 
attention  is  the  Cabinet.  Opposed  to  this  there 
is  a  well-understood  group  of  statesmen,  who  ex- 
pect at  the  next  election  to  become  the  govern- 
ment. Apart  from  this  there  is  no  elaborate  and 
important  party  machinery. 

In  America  the  case  is  different.  When  Jackson 
introduced  the  spoils  system,  there  had  been  long 
years  of  experience  in  building  and  perfecting 
local  party  machinery.  The  convention  system 
for  the  nomination  of  state  and  local  officers  was 
already  well  developed.  This  involved  the  main- 
tenance of  permanent  state,  county,  and  township 
party  committees.  The  party  was  becoming  a 
great  organism  of  State,  corresponding  to  the  older 

60 


PARTY   ORGANIZATION 

institutions  of  government.  In  state  politics  surely 
the  spoils  of  office  did  belong  to  the  victors. 
Nearly  all  offices  were  filled  by  election.  To  these 
offices  the  candidates  were  named  in  party  caucus 
or  party  convention.  They  were  elected  by  a 
party  vote.  The  most  obvious  purpose  of  the 
party  machinery  was  to  gain  control  of  the  offices. 
It  was  therefore  not  unnatural  that  as  the  state 
party  machinery  began  to  be  extended  to  the 
national  party  organization,  there  should  arise  a 
strong  tendency  to  demand,  for  the  party  which 
carried  the  election,  all  the  offices  in  the  general 
government. 

This  is  indeed  what  happened.  Jackson  did  not 
do  an  unpopular  thing  when  he  gave  the  offices  at 
his  disposal  to  members  of  his  own  party.  The 
act  was  immensely  popular.  The  prima  facie 
appearance  of  the  system  was  quite  in  harmony 
with  the  events  of  the  day.  The  people  were 
captivated  by  the  idea  of  democracy.  The  com- 
mon people  were  at  last  coming  into  possession 
of  their  own.  In  the  states,  offices  formerly  filled 
by  appointment  were  made  elective.  The  party 
machinery  used  in  the  filling  of  these  offices 
seemed  to  be  in  harmony  with  true  democracy. 
Each  of  two  parties  had  a  fair  opportunity  to  hold 
conventions  and  make  nominations.  Each  had  a 
fair  chance  to  win  a  greater  number  of  votes.  To 
the  victorious  party,  therefore,  the  offices  should 
belong.  This  was  the  case  in  state  politics,  why 
not  in  federal  politics?  Philosophers  and  states- 

61 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

men  saw  good  reasons  why  this  should  not  be 
so,  but  these  reasons  did  not  greatly  affect  the 
masses  of  the  people.  To  discover  good  reasons 
for  condemning  the  spoils  system  in  federal  politics 
required  a  considerable  degree  of  sustained  atten- 
tion to  the  difference  between  the  federal  govern- 
ment and  that  of  a  state.  Besides,  the  one  sort  of 
business  which  rendered  the  federal  government 
familiar  to  the  great  masses  of  the  people  tended 
rather  to  promote  the  impression  that  in  the  federal 
as  well  as  in  the  state  government  the  offices  belong 
of  right  to  the  party  which  carries  the  election. 
If  the  voter  feels  better  satisfied  when  the  assessor 
or  the  mayor  of  his  town  is  a  member  of  his  own 
party,  this  feeling  is  no  less  acute  when  the  man 
who  hands  to  him  his  letters  has  likewise  been 
known  to  him  as  a  co-worker  in  a  glorious  national 
campaign.  To  the  ordinary  citizen,  the  post-office 
is  a  large  part  of  the  federal  government,  and  that 
part  of  the  postal  business  with  which  the  people 
are  familiar  is  not  mysterious  and  it  is  not  difficult ; 
one  man  can  do  it  about  as  well  as  another,  and  a 
change  once  in  four  years  or  once  in  eight  years 
does  not  seem  a  great  calamity. 

The  spoils  system  grew  up  in  the  party  of  Jef- 
ferson and  Jackson.  The  strength  of  this  party 
was  in  the  rural  districts,  apart  from  the  great 
centres  of  population.  The  Federalists  and,  later, 
the  Whigs  were  stronger  in  the  centres  of  popu- 
lation. Party  organization  in  the  rural  districts 
included  all  the  people.  The  party  organization 

62 


PARTY   ORGANIZATION 

itself  became  a  great  and  efficient  agency  for  bind- 
ing the  people  together,  and  developing  a  sense  of 
unity  in  sparsely  settled  communities.  This  it  was 
better  fitted  to  do  than  was  any  other  organization. 
The  two  parties  pitted  against  each  other  tended 
to  develop  a  sense  of  unity  enlivened  by  a  whole- 
some sense  of  diversity  of  opinion.  This  relative 
importance  of  party  organism  arose  in  large  part 
from  the  very  fact  that  the  people  were  so  widely 
scattered,  and  that  there  was  little  in  the  govern- 
ment, in  its  normal  working,  to  give  to  them  a 
sense  of  common  interest.  Thus  the  party  organi- 
zations themselves  became  great  and  important 
democratic  institutions.  The  party  represented 
the  democracy  in  action.  Whichever  party  could 
at  the  time  muster  the  greater  number  of  voters 
became  by  that  fact  the  agent  of  all  the  people  in 
the  administration  of  the  government. 

In  England,  on  the  other  hand,  the  party  has 
at  no  time  been  viewed  as  a  distinct  organization 
expressing  the  democratic  unity  of  the  people.  In 
the  first  place,  the  so-called  party  was  a  political 
faction  contending  for  the  spoils  of  office,  or  the 
party  in  power  was  a  political  faction  maintaining 
possession  of  the  offices  by  means  of  force  and 
fraud  and  corruption.  With  the  advent  of  democ- 
racy party  organization  was  not  changed.  The 
Cabinet,  and  those  who  at  the  next  election 
expected  to  constitute  the  Cabinet,  still  continued 
to  be  the  sum  and  substance  of  party  organization. 
There  was  no  demand,  there  was  no  place,  for  an 

63 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

elaborate  system  of  local  party  machinery  such  as 
prevailed  in  America.  For  centuries  government 
had  been  centralized  in  the  hands  of  King  and 
Parliament,  viewed  as  one  institution.  This  one 
institution  could  do  anything  it  pleased.  It  could 
make  and  unmake  municipal  corporations  ;  it  acted 
as  a  special  providence  in  matters  of  religion,  edu- 
cation, the  care  of  the  poor,  the  building  of  roads, 
sanitation,  everything  that  any  government  could 
do.  The  people  could  not  think  of  government 
apart  from  the  one  institution  representing  all 
power.  Through  the  Cabinet  system  this  one 
institution  became  organized  as  a  political  party. 
In  its  origin  and  in  its  organization  there  was 
nothing  democratic.  With  the  Cabinet  organized 
and  acting  as  a  political  party,  the  people  could 
not  think  of  themselves  as  constituting  an  organic 
corporate  party  apart  from  and  independent  of 
the  government.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  democracy 
did  not  come  to  England  through  local  organiza- 
tion among  the  people.  Such  organizations  did, 
indeed,  spring  up  in  England  as  they  did  in  France, 
but  they  were  crushed  out  and  destroyed.  Democ- 
racy was  conferred  upon  the  people  by  the  joint 
action  of  the  leaders  of  the  two  parties  as  the  only 
visible  means  of  escaping  perpetual  and  absolute 
despotism.  In  order  to  appeal  to  the  people,  the 
two  parties  were  compelled  to  surrender  the  ancient 
habit  of  securing  votes  through  the  bribery  of  office. 
They  were  compelled  to  make  offices  in  the  civil 
service  equally  accessible  to  men  of  all  parties. 

64 


PARTY   ORGANIZATION 

When  James  Madison  said,  more  than  a  hundred 
years  ago,  that  a  President  who  should  attempt  to 
fill  the  offices  in  our  civil  service  with  his  own  per- 
sonal and  political  friends  would  be  impeached 
and  removed  from  office,  he  spoke  as  an  English- 
man. At  that  time  a  political  party  meant  nothing 
more  than  a  political  faction  contending  for  the 
spoils  of  office.  For  the  President  of  the  United 
States  to  use  the  patronage  of  government,  as  the 
English  Cabinet  was  wont  to  do  at  that  time,  would 
be  revolutionary  and  destructive  to  the  fundamental 
principles  of  our  government.  That  is,  it  would 
be  the  setting  up  of  a  personal  government.  But 
forty  years  later,  when  President  Jackson  actually 
did  this,  the  act  was  not  revolutionary.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was  quite  in  harmony  with  the  demo- 
cratic institutions  of  the  day.  In  the  meantime 
there  had  sprung  up  from  among  the  people  great 
organic  parties.  When  Jackson  put  only  Demo- 
crats in  office,  he  was  not  acting  in  his  personal 
capacity  as  a  ruler:  he  was  acting  as  the  agent 
of  a  great  party  organization,  and  the  party  was 
viewed  as  a  means  of  giving  a  voice  to  the  whole 
people. 

When  the  spoils  system  was  introduced  there 
were  many  of  the  learned  who  still  looked  upon 
it  through  the  eyes  of  James  Madison.  It  was 
viewed  as  revolutionary  and  corrupting  in  the 
extreme.  Early  in  its  history  Horace  Bushnell 
said  of  it,  "  Such  a  system  would  corrupt  a  nation 
of  angels."  This  should  be  accepted  as  exceedingly 
F  65 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

complimentary  to  the  rural  population  in  America. 
The  system  sprang  up  among  them;  for  several 
generations  it  has  been  maintained,  and  the  rural 
population  has  not  been  greatly  corrupted  by  it. 
The  baleful  influence  of  the  system  arises  from  its 
relation  to  city  rather  than  to  rural  politics,  and  its 
evils  will  be  more  successfully  met  if  the  difference 
between  city  politics  and  rural  politics  is  fully 
recognized. 

In  the  country  the  government  does  nothing 
which  the  people  do  not  readily  understand.  All 
is  simple  and  obvious.  Party  organization  in  the 
country  is  likewise  simple  and  obvious.  To  the 
primary  party  machine  belong  all  who  favor 
the  policy  of  a  given  party.  They  are  neighbors 
and  friends  who  are  all  personally  acquainted  one 
with  another.  The  rural  party  primary  may  be 
easily  deceived,  but  its  members  are  all  deceived 
alike ;  there  is  no  select  few  engaged  in  conscious 
conspiracy  against  the  rest  of  the  community. 
The  organizations  of  the  two  parties  include 
the  entire  community.  There  is  no  organic  party 
machine  within  the  party  and  separate  from  it. 

The  contrast  between  the  spoils  system  in  Eng- 
land and  that  in  America  appears  only  when  we 
view  the  subject  from  the  standpoint  of  American 
party  organization  in  the  rural  districts.  In  the 
early  part  of  the  century,  when  the  system  origi- 
nated, city  population  was  comparatively  limited. 
City  politics,  however,  had  even  then  an  immense 
influence  over  general  party  politics.  The  use  of 

66 


PARTY   ORGANIZATION 

the  offices  for  the  control  of  elections  appeared 
first  in  the  city.  There  the  members  of  the  same 
political  party  were  for  the  most  part  strangers  to 
each  other,  and  party  organization  therefore  was  not 
a  binding  and  uniting  force  as  it  was  in  the  country. 
In  the  city  the  few,  who  were  strangers  to  the 
mass,  did  the  work  of  party  management.  Party 
organization  included  only  the  few  who  were  in 
the  secret  of  the  party  business,  and  not  the 
entire  population,  as  in  the  country.  City  govern- 
ment also  was  much  more  extensive ;  a  much  larger 
class  was  supported  by  office ;  a  much  larger  pro- 
portion of  the  offices  was  filled  by  appointment. 
City  enterprises  involved  the  employment  of  many 
laborers,  many  servants  of  various  grades.  The 
few  party  managers  who  made  the  nominations 
and  carried  the  elections  had  the  spending  of  a 
large  sum  of  money.  The  offices  were  filled  by 
the  managers  and  their  friends,  who  thus  gained 
control  of  the  power  of  taxation.  Valuable  fran- 
chises were  distributed  to  personal  friends.  Con- 
tracts were  let  on  favorable  terms  to  those  who 
were  within  the  inner  circle.  The  party  organi- 
zation and  the  city  government  tended  to  become 
one  and  the  same  body.  A  large  proportion  of  the 
party  workers  filled  offices  legally  established ; 
others  received  money  legally  appropriated.  But 
the  exigencies  of  party  business  required  the  con- 
tinuous services  of  a  large  class  who  had  no  con- 
nection with  legally  established  offices.  Voters 
were  to  be  registered.  Ignorant  foreigners  were 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

to  be  drilled  in  the  art  of  brute  voting  according 
to  party  dictation.  Large  classes  of  voters  who 
were  outside  of  party  secrets  were  to  be  concili- 
ated. All  this  required  the  labors  of  experts  who 
had  no  other  occupation.  For  the  support  of  these 
the  party  must  provide  a  fund.  A  simple  method 
for  providing  this  fund  was  to  require  those  who 
received  money  legally  appropriated  to  hand  over 
a  portion  of  it  to  the  non-office-holding  party 
workers.  Candidates  were  expected  or  required 
to  make  liberal  contributions.  The  receivers  of 
franchises  or  privileges  also  aided  the  party  by 
liberal  contributions.  Those  who  would  ward  off 
obnoxious  legislation  or  inconvenient  police  inter- 
ference were  likewise  induced  to  take  a  financial 
interest  in  party  politics. 

In  the  city,  therefore,  party  organization  partook 
of  the  nature  of  a  faction  in  more  or  less  conscious 
conspiracy  against  the  people.  There  was  nothing 
democratic  about  it.  It  tended  directly  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  oligarchy  or  a  despotism.  In  such 
a  government  official  patronage  tends  to  promote 
fraud  and  corruption  and  various  forms  of  tyranny 
and  oppression. 

The  true  political  party  cannot  survive  in  a 
despotism.  City  politics  has  ever  tended  to  de- 
stroy party  life  and  party  spirit.  In  any  party 
there  is  a  larger  number  who  wish  to  share  in 
party  spoils  than  can  be  accommodated.  Among 
these  are  those  skilled  in  party  intrigue.  They 
organize  a  faction  to  displace  the  ruling  faction. 

68 


PARTY   ORGANIZATION 

Such  factional  strife  is  intensely  bitter  and  relent- 
less. As  to  which  of  two  factions  shall  rule,  there 
is  ordinarily  no  means  of  determining  save  sheer 
brute  force  or  foxlike  cunning.  A  ruling  faction 
may  be  outvoted  many  times  and  still  hold  the 
dominant  position.  Riotous  contests  between  con- 
tending factions  deter  the  order-loving  citizens 
from  participation  in  party  management.  The 
most  daring  and  unscrupulous  of  the  factions  gain 
and  hold  the  place  of  power.  All  this  tends  to 
destroy  true  party  organization  and  party  spirit, 
and  to  substitute  instead  a  faction  dominant  in 
conspiracy  against  the  people. 

Ordinarily  a  ruling  faction  in  city  politics  lives 
in  greater  fear  of  factions  or  hostile  classes  within 
its  own  party  than  of  the  opposite  political  party. 
Each  of  the  two  great  parties  in  the  city  has  a 
factional  machine  in  conspiracy  against  the  rest  of 
the  party  members.  These  two  party  machines, 
while  nominally  representing  opposite  parties,  often 
work  together,  each  obtaining  an  equitable  division 
of  the  spoils,  or  at  least  a  division  of  the  party 
funds.  The  whole  system  tends  to  destroy  politi- 
cal parties  and  to  concentrate  all  power  in  the 
hands  of  two  party  bosses  who  organize  and  ma- 
nipulate the  two  party  factions,  so  that  together 
they  may  always  deceive  a  majority  of  the  voters, 
or  at  least  may  render  the  majority  helpless.  It 
was  thus  that  in  the  cities  the  spoils  system  tended 
to  obliterate  political  parties  and  to  substitute  a 
ruling  faction  conspiring  against  the  people. 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

The  history  of  political  parties  cannot  be  under- 
stood unless  these  two  points  of  view  be  kept 
constantly  in  mind,  party  organization  from  the 
standpoint  of  rural  politics  and  from  the  stand- 
point of  city  politics.  In  the  early  part  of  the 
century  the  rural  point  of  view  is  especially  im- 
portant. New  York  and  Philadelphia  were  the 
first  cities  to  make  a  decided  impression  upon 
general  politics.  When  Andrew  Jackson  was  con- 
templating the  virtues  of  the  spoils  system  as 
applied  to  federal  politics,  he  remarked,  "  I  am  no 
politician,  but,  if  I  were  one,  I  would  be  a  New 
York  politician." 

Jackson  learned  his  New  York  politics  from 
Martin  Van  Buren,  who  was  a  leading  spirit 
in  the  so-called  Albany  Regency.  This  was  a 
small  group  of  Democratic  statesmen  who  man- 
aged the  politics  of  the  state  from  the  capi- 
tal. They  had  undoubtedly  become  versed  in 
some  of  the  methods  of  city  politics.  They  knew 
that  it  was  not  difficult  to  deceive  the  unsuspecting 
voter.  By  occult  methods  it  was  easy  to  make  or 
to  mar  the  career  of  aspiring  statesmen.  The 
Regency  controlled  a  state  newspaper  organ.  In 
secret  conclave  the  Regency  would  determine  that 
a  particular  aspirant  should  be  made  the  Demo- 
cratic candidate  for  governor  of  the  state.  The 
name  would  be  first  announced  in  a  local  paper  in 
a  remote  rural  district.  In  due  time  it  would  ap- 
pear in  another  section.  Other  papers  in  different 
sections  would  announce  the  name  of  the  selected 

70 


PARTY  ORGANIZATION 

candidate,  and  every  appearance  of  a  spontaneous 
demand  of  the  people  would  be  given  to  the  move- 
ment. The  voice  of  the  people  would  apparently 
reverberate  from  one  end  of  the  state  to  the  other. 
Finally,  the  organ  of  the  Regency  in  a  few  well- 
chosen  words  would  announce  that,  however  much 
the  editor  might  have  preferred  some  one  else  for 
governor,  it  is  evident  that  Mr.  X  is  the  people's 
choice.  And  since  it  seems  a  foregone  conclusion 
that  he  is  to  be  the  candidate,  it  is  the  duty  of  all 
good  Democrats  to  see  to  it  that  he  is  not  only  nomi- 
nated but  elected.  In  all  this  there  is  no  overt  act 
that  is  corrupt.  It  would  be  difficult  to  prove 
deliberate  intention  to  deceive.  All  who  partici- 
pate in  the  movement  may  believe  the  candidate 
worthy  of  their  support.  All  may  believe  them- 
selves to  be  acting  freely  and  spontaneously.  It 
is  not  at  all  strange  that  Jackson,  viewing  the 
system  from  the  standpoint  of  rural  politics,  should 
greatly  admire  it.  There  was  the  appearance  of 
military  discipline  directed  to  the  accomplishment 
of  definite  political  results. 

In  the  eyes  of  the  city  spoils  politician,  however, 
the  facts  have  a  different  look.  The  city  spoils- 
man is  a  conscious  conspirator.  He  is  accustomed 
to  perpetrate  intentional  acts  of  deception.  If 
a  particular  candidate  is  being  promoted  for  a 
special  place  of  importance,  there  are,  to  his  mind, 
definite  relations  to  valuable  franchises  to  be  dis- 
posed of.  There  are  jobs  to  be  let  on  terms 
especially  favorable.  There  are  offices  to  be  given 

7T- 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

out  according  to  agreement.  When,  therefore, 
the  city  politician  manipulates  the  country  vote, 
he  is  more  or  less  a  conscious  corrupter.  We 
have  no  reason  to  suppose,  however,  that  at  the 
time  the  spoils  system  was  extended  to  federal 
politics,  corruption  in  city  politics  had  reached 
anything  approaching  modern  proportions.  All 
the  germs  were  there,  but  they  were  not  fully 
developed. 

The  extension  of  the  spoils  system  to  federal 
politics  immensely  increased  the  corruption  funds 
in  the  large  cities  and  the  number  of  the  offices 
at  the  disposal  of  the  local  bosses  of  the  party 
in  power.  Many  local  party  workers  could  be 
provided  for  by  sinecure  federal  offices.  A  great 
army  of  federal  officers  became  subject  to  party 
assessment.  This  was  not  at  all  confined  to  city 
offices.  All  the  federal  officers  were  subject  to 
assessment.  Many  acts  of  the  federal  government 
transferred  immense  values.  Such  were  the  pro- 
tective tariffs,  the  grants  of  lands  to  railways, 
regulations  as  to  forests  and  mining.  All  these 
facts  tended  to  increase  the  number  of  citizens 
who  were  willing  to  make  large  contributions 
to  irresponsible  party  committees.  And  this  in 
turn  tended  to  increase  the  corruption  in  the 
already  corrupt  city  government,  and  greatly  to 
extend  the  area  of  conscious  party  fraud.  But  it 
required  a  long  while  to  work  out  the  natural 
results  of  the  system.  It  was  introduced  thirty 
years  before  the  Civil  War,  and  was  adopted  with- 

72 


PARTY   ORGANIZATION 

out  hesitation  by  both  political  parties,  yet  its  cor- 
rupting influence  was  for  long  not  widespread  and 
apparent.  The  rural  point  of  view  continued  to 
be  the  prevailing  one.  There  were  real  issues 
which  rose  so  far  above  the  desire  for  office  that 
the  field  for  the  spoilsman  was  limited.  The  spoils 
system  is,  however,  to  be  reckoned  with  as  one  of 
the  factors  which  tended  to  paralyze  efficient  party 
action,  tended  to  destroy  parties  by  promoting 
faction,  tended  to  introduce  confusion  into  the 
working  of  parties  as  organs  of  public  opinion, 
and  thus  tended  to  confuse  and  destroy  the  parties 
and  to  leave  no  recourse  in  the  settlement  of  diffi- 
culties but  brute  force.  It  is  surely  too  much  to 
say  that  the  system  caused  the  War ;  but  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  it  was  one  of  the  factors  lead- 
ing to  the  great  tragedy. 


73 


CHAPTER  V 

ANTE-BELLUM    VS.   PRESENT  POLITICS 

To  gain  a  knowledge  of  the  working  of  the 
American  party  system,  no  better  period  can  be 
selected  for  study  than  that  which  intervenes  be- 
tween the  Mexican  and  the  Civil  wars.  Party 
machinery  was  not  fully  developed  at  a  much  ear- 
lier date,  and  to  that  period  belongs  the  first  testing 
of  the  perfected  party  machine.  To  understand 
this  time,  however,  it  is  necessary  to  hold  in  mind 
the  essential  facts  in  party  history  previously  to 
the  period,  as  well  as  in  that  of  after  years.  His- 
tory is  not  rightly  read  by  taking  a  limited  period 
out  of  its  relations,  but  rather  by  a  study  of  the 
relations  of  a  selected  era  to  the  complete  life  of 
the  nation.  To  study  party  politics  during  the 
years  before  the  Civil  War  is  to  study  the  politics 
of  to-day.  The  American  party  system  is  a  unit; 
no  one  period  in  its  history  will  be  understood  until 
all  are  understood. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  name  a  single  factor 
which  has  been  so  efficient  in  developing  and 
maintaining  a  sense  of  conscious  unity  in  the 
nation  as  has  the  party  system.  It  was  when 
the  old  Whig  party  before  the  Revolution  became 

74 


ANTE-BELLUM    VS.   PRESENT   POLITICS 

organic  through  local  Patriot  Societies  that  Ameri- 
cans began  consciously  to  breathe  together  as  a 
nation.  The  Democratic  Clubs  of  the  party  of 
Jefferson  were  institutions  eminently  successful  in 
uniting  all  sections  in  the  defence  of  local  liberties. 
The  old  Federal  party  failed  to  survive  because  it 
was  English  rather  than  American  in  the  form  of  its 
organization.  It  did  not  become  rooted  to  the  local 
institutions  of  the  country  ;  it  became  the  party  of  a 
section  rather  than  a  party  of  the  nation,  and  as  an 
organization  it  tended  to  disunion  rather  than  to 
union. 

The  Whig  party  of  1834  was  not  a  reorganized 
Federal  party.  It  was  rather  a  new  party  organized 
on  the  model  of  the  party  of  Jefferson,  and  its  lead- 
ing members  had  had  long  training  in  the  old  Re- 
publican party.  The  Whig  campaign  of  1840  is  a 
phenomenal  exemplification  of  the  fusing  power  of 
a  truly  national  political  party.  When  the  Whig 
party  failed  to  hold  the  field  as  a  national  party, 
the  Union  was  disrupted.  Yet  all  through  the  try- 
ing events  before  the  War,  during  the  War,  and 
since  the  War,  the  Democratic  party  has  survived 
without  an  essential  break.  Throughout  the  dark- 
est hours  of  the  Civil  War,  Democrats  of  the  North 
were  willing  to  endure  much  suffering  on  account 
of  their  sympathy  with  their  brethren  in  arms  in 
support  of  the  "lost  cause."  Does  anyone  sup- 
pose that  such  an  achievement  as  the  reuniting  of 
the  disrupted  Republic  could  have  been  possible  . 
had  it  not  been  for  the  tie  between  the  sections  /'  . 

75 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

furnished  by  unbroken  continuity  of  the  Democratic 
party  ?  After  the  surrender  of  Lee,  those  Con- 
federates who  had  been  Democrats  before  the  War 
were  Democrats  still.  Their  brethren  at  the  North 
were  ready  to  extend  the  right  hand  of  fellowship. 
The  Confederates  who  were  Whigs  before  the 
War  experienced  some  of  the  pangs  of  political 
orphanage.  There  is  strong  probability  that,  if  the 
Whig  party  had  held  the  field,  the  disruption  would 
not  have  occurred.  But  even  if  the  Whig  party  had 
fulfilled  its  possible  destiny,  and  disunion  had  come 
nevertheless,  we  may  say  there  is  a  moral  certainty 
that  the  task  of  reunion  would  have  been  much 
simplified.  Who  does  not  know  that  our  most  seri- 
ous political  difficulties  since  the  War  have  arisen 
from  the  fact  that  the  triumphant  party  has  repre- 
sented only  one  section  of  the  country  ?  Substitute 
for  Republican  the  name  Whig,  and  the  Confederate 
who  before  the  War  was  a  Whig  would  have  had 
a  strong  tendency  to  be  a  Whig  still.  If  his  old 
party  friends  at  the  North  could  not  appeal  to 
observable  acts  of  suffering  on  account  of  sym- 
pathy for  the  lost  cause,  they  could  assure  their 
former  party  friend  upon  the  honor  of  gentlemen 
that  every  pain  inflicted  was  at  the  same  time  a 
pain  suffered.  Even  as  it  was,  there  was  after  the 
War  an  obvious  tendency  in  the  South  to  divide 
along  the  old  party  lines.  Had  the  Whig  name  re- 
mained, it  would  not  have  been  necessary  to  wait  for 
a  generation  to  die  before  the  attainment  of  normal 
political  conditions  in  the  South  could  become  pos- 


ANTE-BELLUM    VS.   PRESENT   POLITICS 

sible.  Thus  the  great  national  parties  are  seen 
to  be  unifying  institutions.  A  faction  or  a  party 
representing  a  section  is  a  divisive  institution. 

In  former  chapters  some  leading  facts  in  party 
history  previous  to  the  Mexican  War  have  been 
noticed.  To  understand  the  period,  it  is  equally 
important  to  read  the  history  backward  and  elimi- 
nate from  consideration  many  factors  which  have 
entered  our  politics  at  a  later  date.  It  requires  an 
effort  for  us  to  imagine  a  state  of  political  life  in 
which  there  was  no  telegraph.  During  the  period 
under  discussion  the  telegraph  was  coming  into 
use.  It  did  not,  as  now,  extend  to  every  hamlet  in 
the  land,  and  the  generation  was  wholly  untrained 
in  its  use.  The  people  had  not  learned  to  think 
together  by  means  of  telegraphic  communication. 
The  daily  newspaper  was  already  a  powerful  factor 
in  the  centres  of  population,  but  the  extension  of 
the  daily  paper  to  the  rural  districts  has  been 
a  matter  of  considerable  time.  This  fact  alone 
makes  an  immense  difference  in  the  ordinary  work- 
ing of  party  politics.  In  1850  it  required  an  im- 
mense effort  to  work  up  a  lively  interest  throughout 
the  land  over  such  a  question  as  the  admission  of 
California  to  the  Union.  When  we  read  the  excited 
language  of  the  political  discussion  of  that  date,  we 
are  apt  entirely  to  misunderstand  it  and  misjudge 
the  situation.  A  few  persons  were  indeed  greatly 
excited,  and  honestly  believed  that  dire  calamities 
were  pending.  The  masses,  however,  knew  little 
of  current  events.  To  judge  of  the  situation  rightly, 

77 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

we  must  eliminate  to  a  considerable  extent  our 
present  familiarity  with  the  telegraph  and  the 
daily  press. 

Without  the  telegraph,  what  we  now  know  as 
the  railway  system  would  be  an  impossibility. 
During  the  decade  preceding  the  Civil  War  our 
modern  railway  system  was  being  rapidly  created, 
but  it  had  not  yet  been  developed.  Much  less 
had  there  grown  up  a  generation  of  men  trained 
to  think  and  act  in  harmony  with  the  system.  In 
order  to  think  rightly  of  political  movement  in  the 
middle  of  the  century,  we  should  think  of  the  rate 
of  movement  of  to-day  and  divide  that  rate  by  ten. 
Then,  also,  care  should  be  taken  to  apply  the  dictum 
of  John  Stuart  Mill,  that,  in  matters  political  and 
social,  little  things  not  only  exert  little  influence, 
they  often  exert  no  influence  at  all.  In  the  slow 
movement  of  public  opinion  at  the  middle  of  the 
century,  events  which  to-day  would  at  least  have 
a  perceptible  effect  upon  general  politics  had  little 
or  no  effect.  It  is  difficult  for  the  student  of  pres- 
ent-day politics  to  understand  how  so  many  inde- 
pendent political  movements  could  coexist.  If  we 
attend  to  one  body  of  political  literature,  we  are 
led  to  believe  that  during  the  first  half  of  the  sixth 
decade  of  the  century  the  nation  was  rocked  to 
its  foundation  over  the  single  question  of  slavery. 
Yet  during  the  same  five  years  a  new  party  was 
organized  and  extended  into  all  the  states  over 
a  question  which  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
slavery.  The  Know-nothing  party  arose  from 

78 


ANTE-BELLUM    VS.    PRESENT   POLITICS 

opposition  to  foreigners  and  the  dread  of  Roman 
Catholic  domination.  In  course  of  a  few  years 
it  became  a  great  national  party,  and  carried  the 
elections  in  many  states.  The  Maine  Liquor  Law 
bears  the  date  of  1851,  and  the  movement  for  pro- 
hibition extended  into  many  states.  If  one  should 
attend  simply  to  the  literature  on  that  subject,  he 
would  get  the  impression  that  the  suppression  of 
intemperance  was  the  one  political  issue  of  impor- 
tance; and  this  question  also  has  no  connection 
whatever  with  either  slavery  or  Know-nothingism. 
At  the  same  time  there  were  wise  men  not  a  few, 
who  honestly  believed  that  the  only  political  issue 
of  great  and  immediate  importance  was  the  ques- 
tion of  free  trade  and  protection.  The  years  from 
1850  to  1855  are  rich  in  doctrinaire  productions  on 
the  relation  of  the  State  to  industry. 

All  this  appears  to  be  so  much  like  the  political 
movements  and  the  political  events  of  the  present 
day  that  the  untrained  student  is  sure  to  misun- 
derstand and  misinterpret.  Did  not  the  rapid 
spread  of  Know-nothingism  indicate  rapid  politi- 
cal changes  ?  In  one  sense  it  did.  In  a  much 
more  important  sense  it  did  not.  The  railway,  the 
telegraph,  and  the  daily  paper  all  existed  in  1850. 
They  were  all  exerting  a  decided  influence  upon 
political  movements.  But  the  telegraph  was  for 
the  first  time  being  inflicted  upon  a  generation 
which  had  not  yet  learned  to  think  in  terms  of 
electricity.  It  is  not  the  speed  of  a  railway  train, 
or  the  speed  of  a  telegraphic  message,  which  must 

79 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

be  divided  by  ten  in  order  to  understand  political 
movement  fifty  years  ago.  It  is  the  speed  of  the 
effective  diffusion  of  public  sentiment  among  the 
masses  of  the  people.  If  the  generation  of  1850- 
1855  had  been  trained  as  has  the  generation  of 
1900,  the  coexistence  of  two  such  national  move- 
ments as  the  Free  Soil  and  the  Know-nothing 
propaganda  would  have  been  impossible.  The 
great  Whig  party  went  out  in  darkness,  largely 
because  of  the  coexistence  of  a  number  of  dis- 
tinct political  worlds.  These  distinct  political 
worlds  existed,  in  part,  because  new  instruments 
of  political  movement  were  being  imposed  upon 
a  generation  untrained  to  their  use. 

By  the  close  of  the  Mexican  War,  the  two  great 
national  party  organizations  had  reached  a  high 
degree  of  perfection.  The  system  of  nominating 
conventions,  reaching  from  the  primaries  of  town 
or  ward  to  the  great  national  conventions  with 
their  corresponding  permanent  party  committees, 
existed  then  much  as  they  exist  to-day.  The 
spoils  system  had  also  been  introduced,  and  had 
become  the  established  order  in  both  of  the  parties. 
The  spoils  system  had  not,  however,  run  its  course 
and  shown  its  power  for  evil  as  it  has  to-day.  It 
had  not  even  been  seriously  challenged  at  the 
hands  of  public  opinion  as  it  has  been  since  the 
establishment  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission. 
True,  a  few  individuals  had  criticised  the  sys- 
tem, sometimes  for  the  sake  of  party  advantage, 
sometimes  from  intelligent  conviction  as  to  its 

80 


ANTE-BELLUM    VS.   PRESENT   POLITICS 

inherent  evils.  But  in  the  main  the  system  was 
absent  from  public  consciousness.  This  of  itself 
involves  a  marked  difference  in  the  relation  of 
party  machinery  to  public  opinion. 

The  spoils  system,  as  now  known,  we  have  seen 
to  be  a  divisive  factor  in  politics.  It  tends  to  sub- 
stitute faction  in  place  of  the  older  and  broader 
party  spirit.  It  tends  to  create  a  limited  class 
who  gain  control  of  the  party  organization,  and 
who  shut  out  the  masses  from  any  real  share  in 
party  management.  The  result  is  that,  with  the 
development  of  the  spoils  system,  and  the  chal- 
lenge which  it  has  received  at  the  hands  of  an 
aroused  public,  the  very  words  "  party "  and 
"  party  machinery "  have  come  to  have  a  new 
meaning. 

The  party  machine  now  denotes  a  conspiracy 
whereby  a  few  corrupt  and  designing  politicians 
gain  and  hold  political  power  for  the  sake  of 
public  plunder.  The  taint  of  the  corrupt  party 
machine,  in  the  mind  of  a  large  section  of  the 
public,  has  extended  to  the  entire  party.  These 
look  upon  parties  as  in  themselves  corrupt  and 
corrupting.  In  their  eyes,  to  be  virtuous  requires 
that  one  should  hold  oneself  altogether  aloof  from 
party.  There  has  grown  up  since  the  War  a  large 
class  of  men  who  look  upon  politics,  upon  the  hold- 
ing of  office,  as  in  itself  occasion  for  presumption 
of  bad  character.  The  word  "  politician  "  has  about 
it  a  bad  odor.  To  understand  ante-bellum  politics, 
it  is  necessary  to  read  out  all  this  from  our  thoughts. 
G  81 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

There  was  corruption  then,  but  it  attached  to  men 
rather  than  to  parties.  There  existed  no  large 
and  respectable  class  who  felt  themselves  too 
virtuous  to  be  identified  with  a  political  party. 
It  was  not  then  an  occasion  for  suspicion  to  be 
identified  with  political  management.  Only  the 
few  looked  upon  the  party  as  the  organ  of  a  dis- 
reputable machine  in  the  hands  of  conspirators. 
In  the  eyes  of  the  great  public  the  party  still  stood 
for  a  method  of  honorable  political  action  for  the 
entire  body  politic.  The  maladjustment  of  party 
organization  to  public  opinion,  which  the  spoils 
system  involves,  had  not  yet  become  evident  to 
the  people  in  general. 


82 


CHAPTER  VI 

SCIENCE  AND   POLITICS 

OTHER  changes  more  difficult  to  recognize  than 
those  wrought  by  the  railway  and  the  telegraph 
have  affected  the  life  and  thought  of  the  last  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century. 

A  State  without  a  railway  may  be  easily  imag- 
ined, but  a  State  actuated  by  an  essentially  differ- 
ent principle  of  morality  is  conceived  with  difficulty. 
The  age  of  science  and  the  diffusion  of  scientific 
education  have  laid  the  foundation  for  a  new  and 
higher  principle  of  morality. 

In  the  spirit  and  method  of  scientific  instruction 
a  marked  revolution  has  taken  place.  Former  gen- 
erations have  not  been  entirely  free  to  believe  and 
teach  according  to  evidence  respecting  the  phenom- 
ena of  the  universe.  Theological  conditions  were 
imposed  upon  investigators  in  the  material  realm. 
Questions  of  science,  as  well  as  of  religion,  were 
determined  by  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures  or 
by  that  of  great  names.  Even  when  men  were 
no  longer  imprisoned  for  scientific  beliefs,  the 
masses  were  still  bound  no  less  effectively  by  the 
bonds  of  prejudice.  Until  very  recent  times,  preju- 
dice has  dominated  science  as  it  still  dominates 

83 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

politics.  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  was  published 
in  1859,  and  Spencer's  First  Principles  appeared 
three  years  later.  Thus  the  promulgation  of  the 
theory  of  evolution  coincided  with  our  Civil  War, 
and  its  general  acceptance  by  the  reading  world 
took  place  during  the  following  twenty  years.  This 
marks  the  advent  of  the  new  age. 

Throughout  the  earlier  age  the  human  mind  was 
more  or  less  trammelled  and  bound  in  all  fields  of 
thought  by  superstition  and  prejudice.  Science 
peered  timidly 'into  the  wide  world  of  material 
phenomena.  Did  scientific  observations  seem  to 
contradict  the  Scriptures  and  the  beliefs  of  the 
fathers,  Scripture^  teachings  and  time-honored  the- 
ories must  stand,  regardless  of  evidence. 

Our  African  preacher  who  still  maintains  that 
the  world  is  flat  is  not  really  so  peculiar  as  he 
appears.  It  is  not  long  since  the  great  body  of 
educated  and  intelligent  persons  manifested  a  like 
spirit.  It  is  true  that  after  Magellan  actually 
sailed  around  the  world  it  became  unpopular  to 
profess  the  former  belief  as  to  its  shape ;  but 
multitudes  have  continued  to  believe  according  to 
prejudice  where  the  evidence  has  been  less  conclu- 
sive. I  have,  myself,  known  an  intelligent  Presby- 
terian elder,  who  was  a  practical  geologist,  a  coal 
prospector  of  wide  experience,  and  an  interested 
observer  of  the  fossil  remains  found  in  the  various 
strata.  Yet  the  theologian  dominated  the  scientific 
student,  and  the  man  believed  and  taught  that  the 
coal,  the  fossils,  and  the  strata  were  all  made  in 

84 


SCIENCE   AND   POLITICS 

their  present  form  about  six  thousand  years  ago. 
He  was  but  a  normal  product  of  the  prevailing 
education  before  the  advent  of  the  new  age  of 
science.  Multitudes  yet  live  whose  memories 
reach  back  to  a  time  when  the  salvation  of  the 
soul  was  made  to  rest  upon  a  belief  in  certain 
selected  doctrines.  If  any  sort  of  teaching  seemed 
to  imperil  the  soul  it  was  to  be  rejected,  regardless 
of  evidence.  Before  accepting  new  revelations  from 
science,  their  relations  to  the  selected  theological 
dogmas  must  be  canvassed.  A  dominant  moral 
imperative  forestalled  and  prevented  freedom  in 
the  advancement  of  science. 

All  this  has  now  passed  away.  According  to  the 
new  ideal  a  saved  soul-is  one  that  has  attained  unto 
a  spirit  of  open-mindedness  to  all  truth.  Not  only 
is  there  no  longer  any  moral  obstacle  to  the  accep- 
tance of  scientific  truth,  but  there  is  instead  a  dis- 
tinct moral  obligation  to  observe  according  to 
ability  and  to  believe  according  to  evidence.  In 
all  that  pertains  to  physical  science  something  like 
moral  perfection  has  been  reached.  Prejudice  has 
disappeared.  All  classes  are  ready  to  accept  all 
that  science  can  reveal. 

Men  of  science,  it  is  true,  are  not  always  agreed. 
They  become  committed  to  certain  theories;  contro- 
versy arises  between  supporters  of  conflicting  the- 
ories. But  seldom  indeed  does  it  happen  that  a 
partisan  in  science  is  suspected  of  coloring  his  obser- 
vations or  distorting  his  reports  in  support  of  a  fa- 
vorite theory.  Even  in  the  heat  of  scientific  debate, 

85 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

men  of  science  are  wont  to  maintain  the  high 
moral  attitude  of  complete  open-mindedness ;  they 
see  according  to  ability,  and  they  report  fully  all 
that  is  seen.  In  the  scientific  world  prejudice  and 
falsehood  are  almost  extinct.  The  moral  pressure 
upon  belief  which  characterized  the  former  age  is 
now  accounted  grossly  immoral. 

So  great  a  moral  transformation  cannot  take 
place  in  one  field  of  human  experience  without 
deeply  affecting  -the  whole  life.  Politics  have 
already  been  greatly  modified  by  the  advent  of 
the  age  of  science.  Changes  there  are  as  real 
and  as  significant  as  in  the  realm  of  physical 
science,  but  in  politics  the  revolution  is  not  yet 
complete.  Falsehood  has  not  disappeared  from 
the  field;  partisans  to  a  political  debate  do  not 
observe  and  see  according  to  ability,  and  they  do 
not  report  without  color  all  that  is  seen.  Yet  in 
politics  also,  as  in  science,  a  new  and  revolutionary 
moral  sense  has  appeared. 

Machiavelli  has  put  in  classic  form  the  observa- 
tion that  despotic  government,  as  it  has  appeared 
in  past  history,  is  founded  upon  force,  supple- 
mented by  falsehood  and  deception.  The  sup- 
porter of  despotism  is  morally  bound  to  practise 
deception.  This  is  the  foundation  for  the  long 
conflict  between  theology  and  science.  Theology 
was  allied  to  despotic  government,  and  such  a 
government  could  be  maintained  only  by  the  for- 
cible imposition  upon  the  masses  of  the  people 
of  the  teachings  of  their  masters.  A  discoverer 

86 


SCIENCE  AND   POLITICS 

of  new  truth  was  an  intruder  who  threatened  the 
very  foundations  of  society.  The  real  conflict  was 
not  between  science  and  religion ;  it  was  between 
science  and  despotic  politics. 

During  the  ages  of  conflict  between  despotisms 
and  the  voluntary  organizations  of  the  people,  the 
people  have  themselves  been  victims  of  despotic 
education ;  they  have  themselves  been  trained  to 
believe,  not  according  to  evidence,  but  according 
to  impulse  or  feeling.  In  such  a  State  there  could 
be  no  moral  support  for  the  scientific  or  the  Chris- 
tian spirit  in  politics.  All  who  could  be  induced 
to  act  with  the  people  were  by  the  people  ac- 
counted righteous ;  all  the  supporters  of  govern- 
ments which  the  people  had  determined  to  destroy 
were  by  them  accounted  enemies  of  righteousness. 
The  same  was  true  of  the  supporters  of  the  des- 
potic government.  The  fair-minded  man,  or  the 
man  who  would  strive  to  form  an  unprejudiced 
opinion  upon  the  merits  of  questions  in  dispute, 
would  be  universally  reprobated ;  he  would  be 
accounted  immoral,  because  acting  in  violation 
of  the  moral  sense  of  his  age.  This  condition 
grows  naturally  out  of  despotic  government  and 
the  education  which  such  a  government  involves. 
So  long  as  popular  uprisings  were  chiefly  destruc- 
tive in  their  nature,  there  could  be  no  place  for  the 
modern  scientific  spirit  in  politics,  and  equally  out 
of  place  were  modern  conceptions  of  the  Christian 
spirit.  A  new  phrase  has  appeared  to  designate 
the  worthies  of  earlier  generations  who  ventured 

8? 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

their  all  to  break  the  neck  of  tyranny ;  they  are 
called  "  Old  Testament  Christians " ;  they  were 
men  who  held  without  wavering  to  the  highest 
moral  standards  of  their  day,  while  at  the  same 
time  they  were  ignorant  of  the  higher  moral  stand- 
ards of  a  later  day. 

So  much  of  prejudice  and  falsehood  still  remain 
in  the  politics  of  to-day,  that  it  is  extremely  difficult 
to  realize  the  moral  transformation  already  ac- 
complished. This  difficulty  is  increased  by  the 
fact  that  the  exemplars  of  the  earlier  and  lower 
moral  teaching  are  still  admired.  The  moral  war 
against  slavery  is  still  presented  as  a  model  in 
political  and  social  reform,  and  the  extremest  type 
of  antislavery  agitation  is  still  put  forward  as  that 
to  be  admired  and  imitated.  But  all  this  is  mis- 
leading. It  is  not  the  real  man,  but  an  imaginary 
Garrison,  who  is  traditionally  worshipped  to-day. 
Here  is  a  typical  quotation  from  his  pen  in  the 
Liberator  of  January  27,  1843.  Judge  whether 
the  language  is  the  utterance  of  the  hero,  the  saint, 
the  lover  of  his  kind,  such  as  the  modern  apotheo- 
sis of  Garrison  represents  him :  "  Below  is  an 
article  as  full  of  falsehood,  misrepresentation,  cari- 
cature, hypocrisy,  cant,  and  fiendish  malignity  as 
Beelzebub,  the  prince  of  devils."  Garrison  is 
here  commenting  upon  a  temperate  editorial  article 
in  the  New  York  Observer,  in  which  abolitionists 
are  criticised  for  their  extravagances.  Moderation 
was  the  one  thing  which  the  agitator  could  not 
abide.  The  abolitionist  looked  with  no  favor  upon 

88 


SCIENCE  AND   POLITICS 

the  Northern  man  who  attempted  to  study  the 
institution  of  slavery  through  Southern  eyes.  The 
morality  of  the  antislavery  agitator  was  that  of 
the  crusades  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Occasionally  an 
anti-saloon  agitator  of  the  present  day,  or  one  who 
seeks  to  draw  public  attention  to  the  evils  wrought 
by  the  money  power,  or  by  "  soulless  corpora- 
tions," or  the  great  employers  of  labor,  follows  the 
same  model ;  but  they,  one  and  all,  weaken  the 
cause  which  they  attempt  to  serve  by  violating  the 
moral  sense  of  their  age.  Strangely  enough,  even 
those  who  would  rouse  their  fellow-men  to  a  realiz- 
ing sense  of  the  dangers  inseparable  from  the 
methods  of  the  professional  agitator  are  sometimes 
betrayed  into  the  use  of  his  very  temper  and  man- 
ner. They  too  exemplify  the  lower  and  discarded 
moral  standard,  and  from  the  standpoint  of  practi- 
cal politics  they  do  but  aggravate  the  evils  they 
would  restrain. 

But  this  must  be  said  for  the  combatants  upon 
both  sides  of  the  bitter  controversy  leading  to  our 
Civil  War.  They  were,  after  all,  in  harmony  with 
the  spirit  of  their  age  as  corresponding  classes  to- 
day are  not.  The  history  of  that  period  can  never 
be  read  aright  until  this  fact  is  appreciated.  The 
astute  John  C.  Calhoun  looked  upon  Northern 
abolitionists  as  malignant  and  unprovoked  aggress- 
ors, yet  he  admired  their  methods  of  procedure, 
and  urged  the  South  to  like  conduct. 

Even  the  so-called  moderate  men  yielded  to  the 
prevailing  spirit  and  method.  In  the  Democratic 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

Review  for  June,  1851,  a  writer  pours  out  pages 
of  virile  abuse  upon  the  abolitionists,  of  which  the 
following  may  serve  as  an  inadequate  sample : 
"We  have  endured  too  long 'the  epithet  of  North- 
ern doughface.  The  name  has  adhered  to  us 
because  it  has  been  justly  given.  We  deserve  it, 
not  as  applied,  as  cringing  to  slaveholders,  but 
because  we  have  not  faced  down  these  slanderers 
and  forced  all  the  world  to  know  how  much  we 
abhor  their  characters.  The  ardent  Southron  sees 
that  we  do  not  lash  these  hounds  back  to  their 
kennels ;  he  imagines  that  we  are  bitten  with  the 
same  rabies.  This  ignoble  cowardice  of  ours  is 
one  grand  cause  of  Southern  irritation.  Twenty 
years  we  have  been  criminally  passive."  This 
passage  may  be  accepted  as  the  language  of  a 
moderate  man  repenting  of  his  sins  and  coming 
into  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  his  age. 

By  the  processes  of  political  agitation  which 
prevailed  the  South  did  come  to  look  upon  the 
Northern  people  as  "bitten  with  the  same  rabies"; 
they  were  all  "  black  abolitionists."  And  in  like 
manner  the  North  came  to  look  upon  the  South  as 
peopled  by  "fire-eaters."  The  two  sections  mis- 
understood each  other  with  tragic  effect.  The 
Northern  doughface  did  not  succeed  in  retaining 
the  confidence  of  his  Southern  friends.  The  great 
body  of  men  of  moderate  views  on  each  side  of  the 
line,  who  should  have  drawn  together,  failed  to 
do  so,  and  became  in  both  sections  victims  to  the 
leadership  of  extremists. 

90 


SCIENCE   AND   POLITICS 

The  revolution  already  wrought  through  the 
scientific  spirit  and  method  is  manifest  in  the  exist- 
ence of  a  distinct  moral  sense,  generally  diffused 
throughout  the  community,  which  is  against  politi- 
cal prejudice  and  in  favor  of  a  fair  and  truthful 
exposition  of  all  political  and  social  phenomena. 
And  by  this  new  and  nobler  spirit  the  older  moral 
impulse,  once  equally  diffused  and  more  in- 
sistent, in  favor  of  political  prejudice  and  against 
giving  a  fair  and  truthful  exposition  to  political 
phenomena  involving  partisan  interest,  is  being 
displaced. 

The  claim  is,  nevertheless,  sure  to  be  made  that 
our  age  is  peculiarly  immoral,  since,  notwithstand- 
ing the  advent  of  this  higher  moral  sense,  politi- 
cal prejudice  and  partisan  misrepresentation  still 
prevail. 

I  have  no  interest  in  trying  to  prove  that  the 
present  generation  is  either  more  or  less  delin- 
quent than  the  generation  before  the  war.  What 
I  wish  to  make  clear  is  that  it  is  different.  The 
new  moral  sense  has  wrought  a  change.  A  single 
fact  of  common  observation  may  be  cited  in  illus- 
tration. Many  a  man  of  high  moral  ideals,  sen- 
sitive to  the  moral  bearings  of  public  questions  and 
to  the  influence  of  the  accepted  political  methods, 
is  to-day  deterred  thereby  from  political  associa- 
tion and  political  action.  Such  an  attitude  was 
rare  before  the  war.  Hardly  a  man  could  have 
been  found  who  felt  himself  too  virtuous  to  "go 
into  politics."  The  sensitively  moral  were  not 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

repelled   by   political   methods   which   to-day   are 
regarded  as  disgraceful. 

As  the  higher  political  morality  becomes  more 
pervasive  it  will  be  more  difficult  to  judge  the 
earlier  age  fairly.  It  is  even  now  difficult  for  us 
to  understand  the  capacity  of  intelligent  men  in 
former  generations  to  believe  conscientiously  that 
which  was  at  the  time  obviously  false.  The  first 
effect  of  the  injection  of  the  modern  scientific 
spirit  into  politics  has  been  to  enlarge  greatly  the 
field  of  conscious  deception  and  hypocrisy.  By 
carrying  back  the  new  standard  to  the  earlier  age, 
the  upright  politician  of  former  times  may  be 
unjustly  made  to  appear  to  be  consciously  playing 
a  part  for  political  effect.  It  is  easy  to  forget 
that,  from  the  very  nature  of  moral  progress,  it 
often  happens  that  intelligent  moral  leaders  of 
one  generation  will  in  all  good  conscience  say  and 
do  things  which  only  the  conscious  hypocrite  or 
the  knave  of  a  later  generation  can  do. 


92 


CHAPTER  VII 

SLAVERY  AS  A  PARTY  ISSUE 

AT  no  time  before  the  Mexican  War  had  the 
slavery  question  greatly  affected  the  organization 
of  political  parties.  The  Missouri  Compromise 
was  enacted  in  the  midst  of  the  Era  of  Good 
Feeling,  and  while  the  debate  over  the  admission 
of  Missouri  revealed  a  marked  difference  between 
the  North  and  the  South  on  the  slavery  question, 
it  in  no  way  associated  that  question  with  the  name 
of  any  political  party.  A  few  years  later,  when  the 
old  Republican  party,  which  had  already  become 
known  as  the  Democratic  party,  was  confronted  by 
an  organized  opposition  which  assumed  the  name 
of  the  National  Republican  party,  the  issues  were 
not  in  any  especial  sense  associated  with  slavery. 
One  may  say  that  the  National  Republican  party 
had  a  preponderance  of  support  in  the  North,  and 
the  Democratic  party  a  preponderance  of  support 
in  the  South. 

The  National  Republicans  gave  adherence  to 
the  protective  policy,  and  it  was  understood  that 
the  industries  immediately  benefited  by  that  policy 
were  located  in  the  North.  There  did  indeed 
grow  up  between  the  Southern  portion  of  the 
Democratic  party  and  the  supporters  of  the 

93 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

protective  policy  a  very  sharp  contest  which 
threatened  for  a  time  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union.  But  in  the  eyes  of  the  public  slavery 
was  not  directly  associated  with  the  controversy. 

When  the  National  Republican  party  assumed 
the  name  "  Whig,"  there  was  no  perceptible  change 
in  party  issues.  During  the  early  years  of  the 
Whig  party  a  movement  was  on  foot  for  the 
acquisition  of  Texas.  This  movement  had  large 
support  in  the  South ;  in  the  North  it  was  little 
recognized.  When,  however,  in  1844,  there  was  a 
definite  proposition  for  the  annexation  of  Texas, 
the  people  of  all  parts  of  the  country  became 
interested  in  the  matter.  In  the  main  the  people 
of  the  North  were  opposed  to  annexation,  and  very 
largely  this  opposition  rested  upon  objections  to  the 
further  extension  of  slave  territory.  Before  Texas 
became  independent,  Mexico  had  abolished  slavery. 
But  Texas  had  been  occupied  by  immigrants  from 
the  Southern  states  who  had  carried  their  slaves  with 
them,  so  that  as  a  state  independent  of  Mexico  it  was 
maintaining  the  institution  of  slavery,  and  it  was 
assumed  that  if  Texas  were  annexed  to  the  United 
States  it  would  come  in  as  a  slave  state.  In  the  na- 
ture of  the  case,  therefore,  the  discussion  of  the  ques- 
tion of  the  admission  of  Texas  involved  very  defi- 
nitely the  extension  or  non-extension  of  slavery. 

The  Whig  party,  whose  support  in  the  North 
was  stronger  than  in  the  South,  became  com- 
mitted to  the  policy  opposed  to  annexation,  and 
hence,  by  inference,  opposed  to  the  extension 

94 


SLAVERY  AS  A   PARTY   ISSUE 

of  slavery.  In  the  election  of  1844  the  question  of 
annexation  was  the  chief  issue.  The  Whig  party 
was  defeated,  and  that  defeat  was  accepted  as  an 
approval  of  the  policy  of  annexation.  It  should 
be  understood,  however,  that  the  annexation  of 
the  independent  state  of  Texas  did  not  in  itself 
involve  the  policy  of  the  annexation  of  additional 
Mexican  territory.  In  all  other  Mexican  territory 
slavery  had  been  abolished  by  law.  The  Whigs 
maintained  and  the  Democrats  denied,  in  the 
campaign  of  1844,  that  annexation  involved  a  war 
with  Mexico.  Incidental  to  the  acquisition  of  Texas, 
the  United  States  was  led  into  a  war  with  Mexico, 
and  there  was  a  general  impression  that  a  war  with 
Mexico  would  involve  the  acquisition  of  additional 
Mexican  territory.  Hence,  when,  in  1846,  a  bill 
was  introduced  for  the  appropriation  of  money 
to  enable  the  executive  government  to  conclude 
a  treaty  with  Mexico,  David  A.  Wihnot  of  Penn- 
sylvania introduced  a  proviso  to  the  effect  that 
slavery  should  forever  be  prohibited  from  all 
territory  which  might  be  acquired  from  Mexico. 
It  should  be  understood  that  at  this  time  Texas 
was  already  a  part  of  the  United  States.  Wilmot's 
Proviso,  therefore,  had  reference  only  to  additional 
territory  which  might  be  acquired.  It  may  be  said 
that  this  proviso,  introduced  by  a  Democrat  from 
the  state  of  Pennsylvania,  led  to  the  first  important 
discussion  involving  the  question  of  slavery  which 
had  a  marked  effect  upon  the  organization  of  politi- 
cal parties. 

95 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

In  one  sense  the  policy  involved  in  the  Wilmot 
Proviso  was  already  old.  Before  the  formation  of 
the  Constitution  the  Continental  Congress  passed 
the  Ordinance  of  1787,  providing  for  the  organi- 
zation of  the  territory  north  of  the  Ohio  river,  in 
which  document  was  a  proviso  forever  prohibiting 
slavery  in  the  territory  involved.  To  this  ordinance 
all  the  states  gave  their  assent,  so  that  the  question 
did  not  involve  even  a  sectional  difference.  Thomas 
Jefferson  manifested  in  various  ways  the  wish  that 
a  general  policy  might  be  maintained  confining  the 
institution  of  slavery  within  the  states  where  it 
already  existed.  The  acquisition  of  the  Louisiana 
Purchase  during  his  term  of  office  did,  however, 
involve  a  slight  extension  of  slave  territory. 
Slavery  already  existed  in  the  settled  portion, 
now  known  as  the  state  of  Louisiana,  and  by  the 
treaty  with  Spain  our  government  was  bound  to 
respect  all  rights  of  Spanish  subjects  living  in 
the  territory.  This  carried  with  it  the  obligation 
to  maintain  the  institution  of  slavery. 

Missouri  was  the  first  state  to  be  made  out  of 
the  unoccupied  territory  of  the  Louisiana  Pur- 
chase, and,  as  noted  above,  the  admission  of  Mis- 
souri did  involve  a  contest  over  the  question  of 
slavery  which  revealed  a  difference  of  sentiment 
between  the  North  and  the  South.  Owing,  how- 
ever, to  the  peculiar  conditions  of  our  political 
parties  at  the  time,  no  party  organization  was  in 
any  way  involved  in  the  controversy. 

In  the  act  providing  for  the  admission  of  Mis- 


SLAVERY  AS  A   PARTY   ISSUE 

souri  provision  was  made  for  a  permanent  settle- 
ment of  this  vexed  question.  All  the  territory 
north  of  the  southern  line  of  Missouri  was  made 
by  this  law  permanently  free.  The  only  territory 
south  of  this  line  then  belonging  to  the  United 
States  was  that  now  known  as  the  state  of 
Arkansas  and  a  part  of  the  Indian  Territory,  and 
it  was  assumed  by  the  supporters  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  that  this  small  territory  south  of  the 
line  would  be  open  to  slavery,  although  there  was 
no  positive  law  to  that  effect,  while  the  immense 
territory  to  the  north  would  be  made  into  free 
states.  The  fact  that  the  Southern  statesmen  saw 
that  the  territory  open  to  the  making  of  free  states 
was  large,  while  the  territory  that  could  be  made 
into  slave  states  was  small,  led  to  the  adoption  of  a 
policy  with  respect  to  Texas  that  secured  first 
its  independence  from  Mexico  and  finally  its 
annexation  to  the  United  States. 

The  introduction,  therefore,  of  the  Wilmot  Pro- 
viso was  a  signal  for  an  animated  debate  over  the 
whole  question  of  the  further  extension  of  slavery. 
This  debate  arose  at  a  time  when  political  parties 
were  fully  organized.  There  was  the  great  Demo- 
cratic party,  having  a  perfect  system  of  local  or- 
ganization in  every  part  of  the  country,  while  the 
Whig  party  was  almost  equally  perfect  in  its 
organization  and  extent.  These  two  parties  em- 
braced almost  the  whole  of  the  American  people. 
A  third  party  was  represented  during  the  cam- 
paign of  1844  by  James  G.  Birney,  who  was  the 
H  97 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 


candidate  of  the  newly  organized  Liberty  party. 
This  party  had  for  the  first  time  presented  a 
candidate  in  1 840 ;  and  while  the  vote  received  in 
1844  was  larger  than  that  in  the  previous  election, 
it  represented  an  insignificant  fraction  of  the 
American  people. 

Over  the  tariff  question  and  the  doctrine  of 
nullification  a  portion  of  the  Southern  people  had 
become  united  under  the  leadership  of  John  C. 
Calhoun.  They  were  known  as  "  Nullifiers,"  and 
they  acted  independently  of  the  regular  Democratic 
party,  in  some  cases  having  even  united  with  the 
Whigs  against  the  Democrats.  It  was  on  this 
account  that  John  Tyler  of  Virginia  became  the 
Whig  nominee  for  the  vice-presidency  in  1840,  he 
being  a  member  of  the  Calhoun  party,  commonly 
called  Nullifiers.  Upon  the  question  of  the 
annexation  of  Texas  the  Nullifiers  and  the  regular 
Democrats  of  the  South  were  united,  John  C. 
Calhoun  having  in  every  way  a  leading  part  in 
securing  the  annexation.  But  so  soon  as  it  became 
manifest  that  the  annexation  of  Texas  was  likely 
to  lead  to  a  war  with  Mexico,  and  especially  as  it 
appeared  that  the  war  would  result  in  the  acquisi- 
tion of  free  territory,  John  C.  Calhoun  became 
earnestly  opposed  to  it.  In  this  policy  he  had  at 
first  little  support  in  the  South. 

The  Mexican  War  as  it  progressed  received  the 
support  of  nearly  all  classes,  North  and  South,  and 
before  its  close  it  had  become  as  much  a  Whig  as 
a  Democratic  war.  So,  also,  the  policy  of  securing 


SLAVERY   AS  A   PARTY   ISSUE 

the  cession  of  California  and  the  territory  to  the 
east  was  supported  by  all  classes,  North  and 
South.  Only  gradually  did  the  slaveholding  ele- 
ment in  the  South  come  to  realize  the  difficulty 
of  securing  any  part  of  this  territory  for  the 
extension  of  slavery. 

The  vote  on  the  Wilinot  Proviso  in  Congress, 
which  occurred  in  August,  1846,  showed  a  very 
large  preponderance  of  sentiment  in  its  favor, 
especially  in  the  North.  An  amendment  was 
introduced  to  the  effect  that  only  the  territory 
north  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line  should  be 
included  in  the  restrictions  of  the  proviso.  This 
was  voted  down  by  a  considerable  majority,  and 
the  proviso  was  allowed  to  stand  as  originally  pre- 
sented. In  the  Senate  it  was  understood  that 
there  was  in  its  favor  a  decided  majority,  and  it 
was  defeated  only  by  the  adjournment  of  that 
House  before  reaching  a  vote.  At  this  time  the 
general  feeling  of  the  country  appeared  to  be 
overwhelmingly  favorable  to  the  proviso.  But  the 
extreme  proslavery  party  of  the  South  soon  began 
to  think  as  did  John  C.  Calhoun,  that  the  acquisi- 
tion of  the  free  territory  from  Mexico  was  a  mis- 
take. Calhoun  himself  distrusted  all  parties  in 
the  North,  and  looked  upon  them  as  essentially 
devoted  to  antislavery.  The  Southern  slave- 
holders took,  at  this  time,  a  gloomy  view  of  the 
prospects  of  their  own  section,  and  the  war  com- 
menced only  a  year  or  two  before  by  the  slave 
power  with  the  expectation  of  strengthening  the 

99 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

institution  of  slavery  was  now  looked  upon  as,  in 
its  results,  laying  the  foundation  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  slavery  or  the  destruction  of  the  Union. 

Before  the  end  of  the  Mexican  War  preparation 
was  made  for  the  presidential  campaign  of  1848. 
In  fact,  quite  early  in  the  history  of  the  war,  the 
selection  of  the  candidates  for  the  Whig  party 
began  to  be  made.  The  leading  generals  of  the 
army  were  Whigs,  and  both  Taylor  and  Scott  were 
named  as  suitable  candidates  for  the  presidency. 
Taylor's  party  affiliations  were  not  definitely 
known,  since  he  had  never  voted  at  a  presiden- 
tial election ;  yet,  on  account  of  his  popularity 
as  a  soldier,  he  became  generally  regarded  as  the 
available  Whig  candidate.  Before  the  meeting  of 
the  Whig  convention  in  1848,  General  Taylor  had 
been  nominated  so  many  times,  and  in  so  many 
ways,  by  different  bodies  of  Whigs  and  citizens 
irrespective  of  party  affiliations,  that  the  conven- 
tion was  induced  to  accept  him  as  the  Whig 
candidate. 

The  selection  of  a  satisfactory  Democratic  can- 
didate was  not  so  easily  accomplished.  There 
had  been  in  the  convention  four  years  before 
a  serious  rupture  in  the  party  in  the  state  of 
New  York.  The  faction  in  New  York  state 
•/  politics  known  as  the  Barnburners,  led  by  Mar- 
tin Van  Buren,  withdrew  from  the  convention,  and 
this  rupture  in  the  Democratic  party  of  the  state 
of  New  York  had  not  been  healed.  So,  when  the 
party  selected  as  its  candidate,  in  1848,  Lewis 
100 


SLAVERY   AS  A   PARTY    ISSUE 

Cass  of  Michigan,  the  bitter  rival  of  Martin  Van 
Buren,  the  Barnburners  in  New  York  were  not 
inclined  to  support  the  candidate.  In  the  mean- 
time the  issue  raised  by  the  Wilmot  Proviso  had 
grown  in  importance  and  interest  throughout  the 
country,  and  men  were  everywhere  taking  sides 
upon  it.  Nevertheless,  both  of  the  great  parties 
were  disposed  to  ignore  this  issue  in  their  party 
platforms.  There  was,  therefore,  a  very  strong 
tendency  to  disunion  in  the  Democratic  party, 
and  an  equally  strong  tendency  also  among  the 
Northern  Whigs  to  repudiate  the  action  of  their 
party. 

On  account  of  this  political  situation  Martin 
Van  Buren,  as  the  leader  of  a  strong  faction 
in  the  state  of  New  York,  was  induced  to  become 
the  candidate  for  the  presidency  of  a  party  calling 
itself  the  Free  Democracy.  He  was  nominated 
in  the  first  place  by  a  convention  of  his  political 
friends,  held  at  Utica,  New  York,  and  later  by  a 
National  Convention  held  at  Buffalo.  In  this  con- 
vention were  members  representing  the  Liberty 
party,  Antislavery  Whigs,  and  Free  Soil  Demo- 
crats. Thus  the  debate  growing  out  of  the  Wil- 
mot Proviso  had  already  become  the  occasion  for 
a  serious  split  in  the  regular  Democratic  party. 
The  support  given  to  the  Buffalo  platform  and 
candidates,  while  not  sufficient  to  carry  the  elec- 
tion in  any  state,  was  large  enough  to  change  the 
result  of  the  election,  and  to  secure  the  triumph 
of  the  Whigs. 

101 

f     V  OF  THE 

f  UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CAUSES  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

WHEN  the  question  is  raised  as  to  the  cause  of 
the  disruption  of  the  Union  in  1861,  two  distinct 
answers  are  at  hand :  One,  that  it  arose  from  a 
dispute  about  slavery  ;  the  other,  that  it  was  caused 
by  a  dispute  about  state  rights.  The  close  rela- 
tion of  these  two  causes  may  be  so  clearly  pointed 
out  as  virtually  to  reduce  them  to  one ;  but  in  order 
to  understand  the  whole  course  of  the  history  it  is 
quite  important  to  recognize  their  distinct  and 
separate  character. 

The  doctrine  of  state  rights  was  formulated  and 
became  a  factor  in  our  politics  without  any  refer- 
ence to  the  slavery  question.  Surely  Jefferson 
was  not  anxious  to  secure  a  large  field  for  the 
independent  power  of  the  state  that  he  might 
gain  a  more  effective  agency  for  the  defence 
of  slavery.  He  had  a  well-defined  fear  of  central- 
ized power  as  a  possible  menace  to  the  liberty 
of  citizens,  irrespective  of  the  peculiar  institu- 
tion. Jefferson  attacked  the  Federal  party  be- 
cause, as  he  alleged,  its  principles  were  inimical 
to  free  institutions.  In  his  eyes  the  Federalists 
were  monarchists  who  were  engaged  in  setting  up 
in  this  country  a  tyranny  which  would  be  far  more 
102 


CAUSES   OF   THE   CIVIL  WAR 

dangerous  to  the  liberties  of  the  people  than  could 
be  the  tyranny  of  any  monarchy  whose  seat  was 
in  Europe.  Therefore  he  labored  unweariedly  to 
destroy  the  Federal  party  root  and  branch. 

Even  after  the  Federal  party  had  passed  away 
and  the  Federal  name  had  been  repudiated  by 
statesmen  of  every  sort,  Jefferson  still  declared 
that  the  principles  of  Federalism  remained.  He 
admitted  that  its  advocates  were  no  longer  aiming 
at  monarchy  in  form,  but  he  averred  that  they 
were  still  seeking  to  accomplish  the  same  results 
by  a  process  of  centralization.  One  power  after 
another  was  to  be  filched  from  the  states  and  cen- 
tralized in  the  general  government.  He  believed 
that  such  a  government  would  be  in  its  very 
nature  a  despotism.  The  states  would  be  de- 
graded to  subject  provinces,  and  the  people  would 
be  gradually  reduced  to  slavery.  The  only  reliable 
bulwark  against  this  threatened  tyranny  Jefferson 
believed  to  be  found  in  the  independent  power  of 
the  separate  states,  and  he  called  upon  the  people, 
as  they  loved  their  liberties,  to  maintain  full  con- 
trol of  their  local  governments. 

We  need  always  to  remember  that  this  doctrine 
was  formulated  and  gained  a  powerful  hold  upon 
the  minds  of  the  people,  both  North  and  South, 
at  a  time  when  the  institution  of  slavery  was 
not  a  recognized  issue  in  our  national  politics. 
They  were  white  men  who  went  to  jail  in  the 
process  of  the  execution  of  the  Sedition  Law, 
because,  as  they  alleged,  they  had  exercised  their 
103 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

constitutional  duty  of  criticising  their  public  ser- 
vants. Even  the  Federalists  themselves,  who 
had  enacted  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Laws,  were 
quite  inclined  to  look  to  the  states  as  a  bulwark 
against  federal  aggression  when  they  saw  that 
their  local  commercial  interests  were  imperilled 
by  the  Embargo  Act  and  by  the  maintenance  of 
a  war  which  they  did  not  approve. 

A  jealous  attachment  to  local  liberties  and  the 
rights  of  the  individual  states  has  always  been  an 
important  factor  in  our  political  history,  without 
any  necessary  connection  with  the  institution  of 
slavery.  It  may  be  allied  to  the  peculiar  sensitive- 
ness to  criticism  which  is  characteristic  of  a  new 
country.  There  are  yet  places  in  the  United 
States  where  it  is  scarcely  safe  to  make  disparag- 
ing remarks  about  the  climate.  Even  the  weather 
is  accepted  as  a  local  institution  to  be  defended. 
Certain  it  is  that  a  sensitive  resentment  of  fault- 
finding had  much  to  do  in  uniting  the  South 
against  the  North.  Southerners  were  not  so  much 
devoted  to  slavery  as  they  were  devoted  to  the 
South.  An  attack  upon  slavery  from  the  North 
was  resented  as  foreign  aggression.  This  local 
pride  should  be  borne  in  mind  as  of  equal  impor- 
tance with  the  doctrine  of  state  rights,  in  consider- 
ing the  growth  of  the  sectional  division.  The 
South  was  not  always  peculiar  in  its  relations  to 
slavery.  In  colonial  days  North  and  South  alike 
introduced  negro  slavery,  and  both  sections  were 
alike  affected  by  the  general  antislavery  senti- 
104 


CAUSES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR 

ment  of  the  period  of  the  Revolutionary  War.  In 
both  sections  provisions  were  made  for  gradual 
emancipation.  When  the  Constitution  was  framed 
the  impression  was  general  that  slavery  would  ere 
long  disappear.  So  great  were  the  demands  for 
labor  that  slavery  was  tolerated  as  a  temporary 
convenience  or  necessity.  With  the  initial  labors 
accomplished  and  the  land  prepared  for  cultiva- 
tion, free  labor  was  expected  to  be  adequate  to 
after  needs.  In  this  view  the  South  shared  with 
the  North.  There  was,  indeed,  a  marked  differ- 
ence in  climatic  conditions  and  in  the  agricultural 
resources  of  the  two  sections.  The  plantation 
system  of  the  South  made  it  more  difficult  to  exe- 
cute plans  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  in  all 
states  north  of  the  tobacco  plantations  slavery 
gradually  disappeared,  while  it  remained  in  every 
state  south  of  Pennsylvania. 

The  institution  became  linked  to  the  production 
of  cotton.  The  cotton  gin  was  invented  in  1793, 
and  during  the  thirty  years  following,  the  demand 
for  slaves  to  enlarge  the  area  for  the  production  of 
cotton  enormously  increased.  Slave  property 
doubled  in  value.  The  planters  suddenly  became 
rich,  and  the  power  of  wealth  reenforced  that 
which  they  had  previously  possessed  as  men  of  in- 
telligence, cultivation,  and  virtue.  They  became 
inevitably  the  ruling  class.  During  the  thirty 
years  in  which  the  most  striking  effects  of  the 
new  invention  and  the  new  product  were  running 
their  course  in  the  South,  there  was  a  remarkable 
105 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

absence  of  any  general  agitation  of  the  slavery 
question.  The  invention  of  the  cotton  gin  oc- 
curred at  the  time  of  the  reaction  of  sentiment 
which  followed  the  horrors  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. North  and  South  had  been  alike  affected 
by  the  aspirations  for  liberty  which  led  to  the 
great  upheaval ;  they  had  become  alike  possessed 
of  a  general  antislavery  sentiment.  Then,  for  the 
long  period  of  thirty  or  forty  years  they  alike 
shared  in  a  general  indifference  to  the  moral  side 
of  the  slavery  question.  We  shall  never  under- 
stand the  causes  of  the  Civil  War  unless  we  take 
full  account  of  the  experiences  of  these  two  long 
periods  which  were  common  to  the  two  sections. 

When,  after  this  long  period  of  similar  ways  of 
thinking  respecting  slavery  throughout  the  coun- 
try and  of  a  general  absence  of  agitation  upon  the 
subject,  a  "slavery  question"  did  emerge,  it  was 
from  the  beginning  accompanied  by  the  recogni- 
tion in  the  South  of  a  serious  race  problem.  The 
year  1831  is  marked  by  the  occurrence  of  two 
events  of  especial  significance  in  respect  to  this 
discussion.  One  of  these  belongs  to  the  North, 
the  other  to  the  South.  In  January  of  that  year 
William  Lloyd  Garrison  issued,  in  the  city  of  Bos- 
ton, the  first  number  of  the  Liberator,  devoted  to 
the  advocacy  of  the  immediate  abolition  of  slavery 
throughout  the  Union.  Shortly  after,  a  frightful 
slave  insurrection,  instigated  by  Nat  Turner,  a 
negro  fanatic,  took  place  in  Virginia.  About 
sixty  white  persons  were  massacred,  and  an  inten- 
106 


CAUSES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR 

sified  feeling  of  insecurity  and  dread  was  implanted 
throughout  the  slave  states,  which  was  never  after- 
ward wholly  overcome.  In  large  portions  of  the 
South  the  negroes  greatly  outnumbered  the  whites, 
and  the  ever  present  fear  of  an  uprising  of  the  slaves 
influenced  more  strongly  than  before  the  mental 
attitude  of  the  slaveholders  toward  the  blacks. 
The  slavery  question  became  a  race  question. 
Many  Southerners  were  opposed  to  slavery,  but 
there  were  none  who  favored  a  war  of  races. 

This  alteration  of  feeling  in  respect  to  slavery  is 
illustrated  by  the  acrimonious  dispute  which  broke 
out  many  years  later,  shortly  before  the  opening 
of  the  Civil  War.  A  fierce  war  of  words  was 
waged  over  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  "  all  men  " 
as  used  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  One 
party  maintained  that  the  words  meant  "all  white 
men,"  while  the  other  argued  that  all  men  of  every 
race  and  color  were  of  necessity  included.  Both 
appealed  with  equal  loyalty  and  fervor  to  the  acts 
and  teachings  of  the  Revolutionary  fathers.  Now, 
it  is  easy  for  those  of  the  present  generation  to  see 
that  the  quarrel  was  over  a  question  which  hardly 
entered  into  the  consciousness  of  those  who  framed 
and  adopted  the  Declaration.  Nothing  had  yet 
occurred  to  bring  race  problems  into  prominence. 
The  minds  of  men  were  full  of  the  teachings  of 
the  powerful  literature  of  the  period  of  the  French 
Revolution.  These  were  broadly  humanitarian  in 
spirit.  They  dealt  with  the  rights  of  man  as  man, 
taking  no  account  of  race  questions  or  any  other 

107 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

limiting  details.  White  slaves  were  to  be  found  in 
America  as  well  as  black  ones,  and  clearly  defined 
problems  of  race  and  color  bad  not  arisen.  Upon 
questions  of  that  sort  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence made  no  statement  whatever,  and  its  writers 
intended  to  make  none,  simply  because  they  were 
not  present  to  their  thought.  •  We  may  have  our 
own  opinions  as  to  what  the  fathers  would  have 
said  had  they  been  asked  to  define  "all  men,"  but 
they  actually  said  nothing  at  all. 

In  all  political  contests  there  is  a  natural  ten- 
dency for  persons  of  extreme  views  to  gain  the 
leadership.  Extreme  and  positive  convictions  may 
be  easily  described  and  understood.  Men  of  dis- 
creet and  careful  judgment  and  of  moderate  opin- 
ions often  do  not  understand  themselves.  They 
are  not  in  a  position  to  impress  their  convictions 
upon  the  masses.  It  became  manifest  early  in 
the  new  antislavery  agitation  which  sprang  up 
during  Jackson's  administration  that  it  was  to  be 
guided  by  those  who  held  strongly  pronounced 
views.  Garrison's  convictions  were  such  as  every- 
body could  understand.  He  not  only  knew  what 
he  believed,  but  he  knew  what  he  was  going  to  do 
about  it.  "  I  will  be  heard,"  he  said,  and  heard 
he  was,  while  thousands  of  men  of  equal  determi- 
nation, equal  moral  earnestness,  equal  intensity  of 
conviction,  have  called  when  none  would  listen. 
The  times  and  circumstances,  and  especially  the 
state  of  Southern  sentiment,  gave  Garrison  a 
hearing.  He  was  not  a  transcendentally  wise  and 

1 08 


CAUSES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR 

able  leader  of  thought.  He  was  a  man  of  obvi- 
ous, even  glaring,  intellectual  and  moral  defects, 
but  those  very  defects  had  something  to  do  with 
making  him  the  hero  of  an  important  national 
epoch. 

The  views  of  public  questions  advanced  by  the 
editor  of  the  Liberator,  and  the  course  of  conduct 
urged  upon  its  readers,  were  not  such  as  to  com- 
mend themselves  to  cool  and  rational  minds  or  to 
truly  patriotic  citizens  anywhere.  If  Garrison 
and  his  paper  had  been  simply  let  alone,  if  no 
movement  savoring  of  persecution  had  arisen,  their 
teachings  and  exhortations  would  have  had  little 
effect.  But  there  were  excitable  slaveholders  who 
were  disposed  to  take  seriously  the  Garrisonian 
literature  of  denunciation  and  violence  which, 
after  a  time,  came  to  their  hands.  Their  indig- 
nation was  boundless.  They  believed  the  whole 
North  to  be  engaged  in  a  conspiracy  to  sow  dis- 
content and  incite  insurrection  among  the  negroes. 
They  must  strike  for  the  safety  of  their  firesides, 
and  for  their  rights  before  the  law.  They  rashly 
struck  at  the  freedom  of  the  mails.  A  demand 
was  made  that  the  Liberator  and  all  other  anti- 
slavery  publications  should  be  excluded  from  the 
privileges  of  the  postal  service.  Books,  papers,  and 
tracts  suspected  of  abolition  purposes  were  seized 
at  the  post-office  and  publicly  burned  in  the 
city  of  Charleston,  South  Carolina.  Federal  laws 
were  disregarded  and  the  sanctity  of  the  mails 
repeatedly  violated,  while  an  effort  was  made 

109 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

to  legalize  by  federal  enactment  the  exclusion  of 
all  antislavery  matter  from  the  mails. 

This  movement  in  the  South  it  was  which  first 
gave  real  significance  and  force  to  the  Northern 
agitation  against  slavery.  It  called  attention  in  a 
most  effective  way  to  the  obnoxious  publications. 
Few  had  hitherto  taken  much  interest  in  aboli- 
tion literature,  but  every  man,  of  whatever  politi- 
cal or  moral  inclination,  was  naturally  disposed  to 
take  a  profound  interest  in  a  policy  of  interference 
with  the  United  States  mails.  Not  only  was  the 
bill  brought  before  Congress  to  establish  a  censor- 
ship of  the  mails  in  the  interest  of  Southern  slave- 
owners quickly  defeated,  but  still  more  stringent 
laws  were  passed  for  guarding  the  integrity  of  the 
postal  service.  The  abolitionists  had  thus  a  vic- 
tory forced  upon  them  by  the  attitude  and  action 
of  their  more  extreme  opponents.  Abolition  litera- 
ture could  be  scattered  broadcast  over  the  coun- 
try without  making  any  apparent  impression  upon 
the  busy  world ;  but  when  mob  after  mob  gath- 
ered on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  to  destroy 
the  printing-presses  of  the  determined  antislavery 
publisher,  Elijah  Lovejoy,  and  finally  murdered 
the  proprietor  himself ;  and  when  similar  lawless 
and  violent  deeds  were  done  in  many  places  under 
like  inspiration,  —  then  at  last  public  attention  was 
secured.  Men  of  moderate  and  rational  views  as 
to  slavery  began  to  appear  as  immoderate  and 
intensely  partisan  advocates  of  one  side  or  the 
other  of  the  bitter  contest.  The  abolitionists,  who 
no 


CAUSES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR 

had  long  seemed  to  be  but  a  feeble  folk,  became 
through  the  mistakes  of  their  enemies  invincible. 
Yet  not  many  were  willing  to  enroll  themselves  as 
abolitionists,  and  the  more  radical  group,  who  held 
themselves  aloof  from  all  political  affiliations  and 
would  act  only  with  those  who  were  ready  to  go 
to  extremes,  was  always  small.  The  advocates  of 
slavery  had  quickly  put  themselves  in  the  wrong, 
and  constantly  fought  a  losing  battle.  Great 
numbers  or  powerful  influences  are  never  neces- 
sary in  order  to  vindicate  the  right  of  free  speech 
against  mob  violence. 

The  same  arguments  which  convinced  Southern 
planters  that  manufactures  could  not  be  maintained 
with  slave  labor  in  competition  with  free  labor 
tended  to  convince  the  most  discerning  among 
them  that  the  institution  itself  could  not  be  main- 
tained within  restricted  limits.  The  phenomenal 
advancement  in  the  South  during  the  early  years 
of  the  century  was  due,  as  has  been  already 
pointed  out,  to  a  unique  series  of  circumstances  di- 
rectly affecting  her  industrial  condition.  As  years 
passed  the  planters  saw  that  immense  areas  of  fertile 
land  to  be  exploited  at  enormous  profit  by  slave 
labor  lay  no  longer  at  their  doors.  The  marvellous 
effects  upon  Southern  industries  of  the  invention 
of  the  cotton  gin,  which  had  worked  a  revolution  in 
the  production  of  that  staple  of  which  the  South 
had  a  monopoly,  were  passing  away.  Southern 
agriculture  required  large  tracts  of  land  for  its  suc- 
cessful practice.  New  lands  suitable  for  the 

in 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

staple  crops  were  becoming  scarce,  and  upon  the 
worn-out  plantations  slave  labor  was  unprofitable. 

Meantime  the  Northern  states,  with  free  labor 
and  diversified  industries,  with  a  rapidly  increasing 
native  and  immigrant  population,  were  growing 
daily  richer  and  stronger,  and  the  South  saw  her- 
self forced  into  a  position  of  relative  if  not  actual 
decline.  Conscious  of  the  weakness  of  their  posi- 
tion, proud,  public-spirited,  devoted  to  the  interests 
of  their  beloved  South,  the  intelligent  Southern 
leaders  became  abnormally  sensitive  to  everything 
affecting  their  relations  to  the  more  prosperous 
rival  section ;  they  stood  constantly  and  con- 
sciously upon  the  defensive. 

All  these  facts  help  to  explain  the  readiness 
with  which  Southern  feeling  flamed  up  against  the 
abolition  movement.  Against  the  intense  moral 
earnestness  of  their  Northern  aggressors  the  exas- 
perated Southern  leaders  pitted  their  experience 
and  skill  in  political  management  and  their  power 
as  moulders  of  public  opinion.  The  abolitionists 
labored  to  awaken  the  national  conscience.  The 
Southern  leaders  formed  and  executed  elaborate, 
statesmanlike  political  plans. 

A  peculiar  watchfulness  and  sensitiveness  re- 
specting an  equitable  balance  of  power  between 
the  slave  and  the  free  states  dates  from  the  time 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  Southern  states- 
men soon  began  to  scheme  for  the  acquisition  of 
Texas.  Their  overweening  anxiety  for  Southern 
domination  and  their  quick  resentment  of  any 

112 


CAUSES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR 

federal  policy  which  they  believed  likely  to  affect 
unfavorably  their  section  plunged  them  into  the 
abortive  attempt  at  nullification,  with  threatened 
secession,  over  the  obnoxious  tariff  act  of  1832. 
Nullification  having  failed,  it  was  determined  that 
the  South  should  control  the  personnel  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States.  Cool,  calcu- 
lating politicians  proceeded  deliberately  to  the 
packing  of  the  Court  with  reference  to  future 
decisions  favorable  to  the  South.1 

The  abolitionists  formed  no  plots,  devised  no 
political  schemes.  They  fought  in  the  open,  and 
their  appeal  was  ever  to  the  nobler  sentiments  of 
mankind.  The  Southern  movement  in  opposition 
to  antislavery  agitation  was  not  guided  by  irra- 
tional passion.  Its  leaders  were  never  the  victims 
of  mere  sentiment,  however  great  was  the  popular 
excitement  and  however  deep  the  general  indigna- 
tion against  the  abolitionists.  They  laid  deep  and 
far-reaching  plans,  and  their  action  was  always 
controlled  by  a  rational  purpose  in  harmony  with 
the  general  plan.  This  policy  won  them  some 
important  successes.  Texas  was  gained  and  the 
Supreme  Court  secured.  When  the  attempt  to 
unite  the  South  in  resistance  to  the  tariff  acts 
proved  a  failure,  Southern  statesmen  deliberately 
planned  to  accomplish  the  same  object  by  stirring 
up  enmity  toward  the  antislavery  agitators;  and 
well  did  the  abolitionists  play  into  their  hands. 

Certain  elements  which  entered  into  the  spirit 

1  Von  Hoist's  Constitutional  History,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  19. 
H 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

and  methods  of  the  Northern  opponents  of  slavery 
were  peculiarly  calculated  to  unite  all  classes  in  the 
South  in  a  common  feeling  of  exasperation  and 
resentment.  Abolition  utterances  manifested  the 
deepest  sympathy  for  the  oppressed  and  suffering 
negro ;  they  treated  him  with  respect  and  consid- 
eration. But  for  no  other  class  in  Southern 
society  had  the  most  radical  of  the  abolitionists 
anything  but  contempt  and  disdain.  They  spoke 
scornfully  of  "  slave-drivers "  and  "  poor  white 
trash/'  as  if  those  two  classes  constituted  the  whole 
of  the  Southern  white  population,  and  they  exalted 
the  despised  African  as  far  worthier  of  regard 
than  either.  Thus  the  large  class  of  Southern 
whites  who  had  never  held  slaves  and  who  were 
disposed  to  a  rational  opposition  to  the  peculiar 
institution  were  driven  to  join  heartily  with  the 
slaveholders  in  resistance  to  the  unseemly  attacks 
from  the  North. 

Direct  political  action  in  the  North  against 
slavery  dates  from  the  year  1840,  and  they  were 
the  more  moderate  of  the  abolitionists  who  then 
formed  a  political  party.  These  assumed  that  the 
Constitution  gave  to  the  general  government  no 
power  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  states,  and  they 
proposed  for  federal  action  only  its  abolition  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  and  in  the  territories  ;  as  to 
slavery  in  the  states,  they  would  persuade  the 
people  in  each  state  to  do  as  the  Northern  states 
had  already  done.  Great  care  was  taken  to  respect 
the  law  and  to  avoid  all  unnecessarily  irritating 

114 


CAUSES   OF  THE    CIVIL  WAR 

action  and  utterance.  The  vote  cast  in  1840  was 
small  —  only  about  seven  thousand.  In  the  next  pres- 
idential campaign  the  Liberty  party  took  advanced 
ground,  incited  thereto,  as  it  would  seem,  by  the  posi- 
tion of  the  more  radical  of  their  enemies.  As  the 
slave  power  had  placed  the  preservation  of  their  cher- 
ished institutions  above  the  law,  so  the  abolitionists 
now  announced  the  discovery  of  a  "  higher  law  " 
than  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  They 
declared  that  any  legal  enactment,  however  ample 
were  its  sanctions,  which  commanded  an  immoral 
act  was  void.  They  pronounced  that  clause  of 
the  Constitution  which  provided  for  the  return  of  a 
slave  to  bondage  to  be  such  a  law.  "  No  human 
law  can  be  enacted,"  said  they,  "  which  binds  a 
man  to  violate  the  law  of  God  or  the  natural  rights 
of  man."  Even  this  position  did  not  satisfy  the 
Garrisonian  abolitionists.  The  Liberator  placed  at 
the  head  of  its  columns,  about  this  time,  the  defi- 
ant declaration,  "  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  is  a  covenant  with  Death  and  an  agreement 
with  Hell."  These  words  appeared  in  every  subse- 
quent issue  of  the  paper  until,  in  1862,  they  were 
replaced  by  the  joyful  call  to  "  Proclaim  liberty 
throughout  the  land  to  all  the  inhabitants  thereof  !  " 
The  vote  polled  by  the  Liberty  party  in  its  second 
campaign,  though  insignificant  in  actual  numbers, 
was  still  sufficient  to  defeat  Clay  and  insure  the 
election  of  Polk. 

In    1848   the   Free-soil  party  gathered  to  itself 
most    of    the    antislavery    forces    which    favored 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

political  action.  Their  position  was  almost 
exactly  that  of  the  political  abolitionists  of  1840. 
They  acknowledged  the  legality  of  slavery  in  the 
states,  and  assumed  that  the  general  government 
had  no  right  to  interfere  with  it  there.  The  vote 
cast  by  the  Free-soilers  was  large  enough  to  sur- 
prise and  to  demoralize,  to  some  extent,  both  the 
old  parties  ;  but  of  more  real  consequence  to  our 
immediate  subject  of  study  were  the  attitude  and 
action  of  a  very  small  group  of  members  of  the 
old  Liberty  party  who  refused  to  be  absorbed  by 
the  Free-soilers  or  to  adopt  their  platform  and 
advanced,  on  the  contrary,  to  a  more  extreme  posi- 
tion. This  fragment  of  the  earlier  abolition  party 
now  boldly  put  forward  the  doctrine  that  the  gen- 
eral government  under  the  Constitution  as  it  was 
had  a  right  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  states  by  a 
simple  act  of  Congress.  So  few  and  so  uninfluen- 
tial  were  the  men  composing  this  political  group, 
that  their  action  passed  unnoticed  in  the  North. 
But  the  promulgation  of  their  extreme  views  was 
seized  upon  by  the  leaders  of  opinion  in  the  South 
and  used  to  convince  the  indiscriminating  masses 
that  the  real  belief  and  purpose  of  all  Northern 
opponents  of  slavery  was  now  plainly  declared. 
Thus  the  flame  of  Southern  discontent  was  fanned 
and  hostility  toward  the  North  made  more  intense. 
Perhaps,  after  all,  there  was  a  measure  of  sincerity 
in  this  conduct  of  the  Southern  statesmen.  To 
men  who  were  engaged  in  a  plot  to  pack  the 
Supreme  Court  with  reference  to  securing,  out  of 

116 


CAUSES   OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR 

the  Constitution  as  it  was,  the  indefeasible  right  to 
practise  slave-ownership  in  all  national  territory, 
this  absurd  doctrine  of  the  abolitionists  did  not 
seem  so  weak  as  it  did  to  the  ordinary  rational 
Northern  citizen.  If  the  Court  could  be  worked 
for  one  extreme  theory,  could  it  not  be  worked  for 
another  ? 

Thus,  at  the  close  of  the  Mexican  War,  the  issues 
which  twelve  years  later  were  to  disrupt  the  Union 
were  already  drawn.  But,  as  yet,  only  a  few  of 
the  most  radical  in  the  two  sections  were  com- 
mitted to  the  policy  of  disunion.  Open  and 
avowed  disunionists  there  were  among  the  extreme 
abolitionists  from  almost  the  beginning  of  the  Gar- 
risonian  crusade,  but  the  number  was  always 
small  and  their  influence  unimportant.  In  the 
South,  on  the  contrary,  if  the  sentiment  in  favor 
of  secession  did  not  spread  rapidly  among  the 
people,  it  grew  ever  more  bitter  and  more  deter- 
mined. 

It  thus  appears  that  the  causes  of  our  Civil  War 
are  numerous  and  varied.  No  single,  clearly 
denned  fact  or  circumstance  or  condition  can  be 
made  accountable  for  that  fratricidal  strife.  It 
is  crude  reasoning  to  assign  slavery  alone  as  the 
unhappy  cause.  We  have  seen  how  the  existence 
of  that  sectional  institution  developed  a  serious 
race  problem,  recognized  and  appreciated  in  one 
section  of  the  country  only ;  how  that  fact  and 
the  coincident  adoption  by  half  the  people  of  the 
political  doctrine  of  state  rights ;  how  the  differing 
117 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

industrial  conditions  in  the  North  and  South, 
the  peculiar  sensitiveness  of  the  Southern  people, 
respecting  their  local  institutions  and  customs, 
and  the  general  spirit  of  the  controversy  which 
made  it  impossible  for  the  two  parties  to  under- 
stand each  other,  —  how  all  these  enter  into  the 
answer  which  the  historian  must  give  to  that  oft- 
repeated  question.  And  as  we  pursue  our  inqui- 
ries, we  shall  learn  that  certain  accidents,  so  to 
speak,  of  party  organization  and  party  leadership 
played  their  part  also  in  clearing  the  way  for  the 
action  of  more  positive  influences. 


118 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE   LAST  WHIG  ADMINISTRATION 

WHEN  General  Taylor  inaugurated  the  second 
Whig  administration  in  1849,  there  was  certainly 
nothing  to  indicate  a  general  break-up  and  re-for- 
mation of  political  parties.  After  a  half-century 
of  experiment  and  trial  it  appeared  that  the 
country  had  found  a  method  of  action,  through 
two  great  party  organizations  extending  to  every 
section  both  North  and  South,  strong  enough  to 
hold  together  and  to  administer  the  affairs  of  the 
nation  in  a  broad  national  spirit,  and  yet  suffi- 
ciently sensitive  to  the  needs  of  each  section,  so 
that  no  one  section  or  class  should  be  seriously 
imposed  upon.  The  National  Whig  party  had 
chosen  to  the  presidency  a  Southern  planter,  a 
slaveholder;  and  that  too  at  a  time  when  the 
majority  of  the  voters  in  the  party  resided  in  the 
North  and  were  especially  interested  in  seeing  a 
policy  adopted  which  would  secure  the  exclusion 
of  slavery  from  the  vast  territory  recently  acquired 
from  Mexico.  The  Democrats,  on  the  other  hand, 
had  tried  to  elect  to  the  presidency  a  Northern 
man  who  had  supported  the  Wilmot  Proviso, 
while  a  majority  of  the  voters  in  the  party  resided 

119 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

in  the  South,  and  many  of  them  were  especially 
interested  in  the  extension  of  slavery  into  the  new 
territory. 

During  the  campaign  in  the  South,  slaveholding 
Whigs  appealed  to  their  Southern  fellow-citizens  to 
vote  for  their  candidate,  because  he  was  one  of 
themselves,  and  because  the  interests  of  the  South, 
and  particularly  the  interests  of  slavery,  would  be 
safer  in  his  hands  than  in  the  hands  of  his  opponent, 
who  had  voted  to  exclude  slavery  from  the  new  terri- 
tory. Against  this  appeal  the  Democrats  of  the 
South  could  point  out  the  faithfulness  of  their  party 
to  the  chief  Southern  interest.  Democratic  adminis- 
trations had  favored  the  policy  which  the  slave-" 
holders  desired,  a  policy  which  had  resulted  in  the 
saving  of  Texas  to  slavery.  The  party  platforms 
had  denounced  abolitionists  as  enemies  of  their 
country,  and  Democratic  officials  had  dealt  leni- 
ently with  those  who  had  refused  the  use  of  the 
mails  for  distributing  antislavery  literature.  The 
regular  Democratic  party  plainly  had  already  a 
traditional  leaning  toward  the  interests  of  the 
slaveholder  in  the  pending  controversy. 

In  the  North  a  different  campaign  key-note  was 
sounded.  Antislavery  Whigs  were  urged  to  stand 
by  their  party.  William  H.  Seward,  the  rising 
leader  of  the  antislavery  wing  of  his  party, 
appealed  to  all  opponents  of  slavery  to  vote  for 
the  Whig  candidates.  In  the  Whig  party,  he  said, 
was  found  the  only  hope  for  meeting  effectively 
the  aggressive  proslavery  policy  which  was  more 
120 


THE    LAST   WHIG   ADMINISTRATION 

and  more  dominating  the  Democratic  party.  With 
one  or  the  other  of  these  two  great  parties  the 
destinies  of  the  nation  must  rest.  The  Whig  party, 
from  its  past  history,  from  its  disposition  and 
character,  would  be  irresistibly  led  to  support  the 
side  of  free  labor;  while  the  Democratic  party 
would  as  inevitably  lean  more  and  more  to  the 
side  of  slavery.1  Thus  the  antislavery  Whigs  of  • 
the  North  held  up  the  position  of  their  party 
rather  than  the  person  of  their  candidate,  as  secur- 
ity for  right  conduct,  and  the  proslavery  demo- 
crats of  the  South  did  the  same  thing. 

General  Taylor  had  committed  himself  to  no 
definite  policy  in  the  new  territory.  He  had  not 
even  committed  himself  to  a  political  party. 
Being  apparently  without  general  political  convic- 
tions, but  willing  to  serve  his  country,  he  accepted 
with  thanks  nomination  to  office  from  any  body  of 
citizens  without  reference  to  their  party  affiliations. 
Even  after  he  was  made  the  regular  Whig  candi- 
date, a  company  of  Southern  Democrats,  who  were 
distrustful  of  the  attitude  of  the  Democratic  nomi- 
nee on  the  slavery  question,  met  in  Charleston  and, 
having  passed  resolutions  in  favor  of  General  Tay- 
lor, sent  him  a  message  making  him  their  candidate 
for  the  presidency.  Taylor  frankly  accepted  this 
nomination  also,  though  news  of  the  fact  threat- 
ened for  a  time  to  make  shipwreck  of  his  pros- 
pects among  the  antislavery  Whigs  of  New  York. 
But  by  adroit  management  the  Whigs  were  kept  in 

1  Seward's  Works,  Vol.  III.,  pp.  250,  270,  286,  291,  and  303. 
121 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

line.  There  was  little  to  endear  the  doughty  war- 
rior to  Whiggish  hearts ;  but  of  that  little  the  utmost 
was  made.  Taylor  had  once  said  that,  if  he  had 
voted  in  1844,  he  would  have  voted  for  Henry 
Clay.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  never  had  voted  for 
any  President,  and  the  only  preference  he  was 
ever  known  to  express  was  this  one  for  Clay ;  but 
the  Whigs  were  urged  to  accept  this  as  adequate 
security  for  satisfactory  Whig  principles.  All 
things  considered,  President  Taylor  came  into  office 
remarkably  free  and  untrammelled.  His  mili- 
tary career  was  the  foundation  of  his  popularity. 
As  a  soldier  he  had  lived  with  the  army,  know- 
ing little  of  politics.  By  his  conduct  of  the  war  a 
vast  territory,  conquered  or  purchased,  had  been 
added  to  the  national  domain,  and  the  successful 
general  had  become  to  his  rejoicing  country 
a  hero  and  a  statesman. 

The  new  President  undoubtedly  felt  a  meas- 
ure of  proprietary  right  over  this  newly  acquired 
territory.  Until  civil  government  could  be  set 
up  in  California  and  New  Mexico,  the  Chief 
Magistrate  was  directly  responsible  for  the  regu- 
lation of  their  affairs.  As  to  what  ought  to  be 
done  there,  General  Taylor  very  early  formed 
definite  conclusions.  And,  rough,  blunt  soldier 
that  he  was,  there  was  to  him  little  difference 
between  a  conviction  as  to  what  ought  to  be 
done  and  the  doing  of  the  thing.  Gold  had 
been  discovered  in  California,  and  immigrants 
were  rushing  into  the  land  by  thousands.  A  local 
122 


THE   LAST  WHIG   ADMINISTRATION 

government  there  must  be.  President  Taylor 
ordered  army  and  navy  officers  to  cooperate  with 
the  people  of  California  in  the  formation  of  a  state 
government.  Under  his  direction,  a  state  consti- 
tution was  adopted,  and  the  President  urged  upon 
Congress  the  immediate  admission  of  California  as  a 
state  under  that  constitution.  A  clause  forbidding 
the  institution  of  slavery  was  put  into  the  constitu- 
tion, and  passed  in  the  convention  without  a  dis- 
senting vote.  The  people  of  California  were  prac- 
tically a  unit  in  their  purpose  to  form  a  free  state. 
The  Southern  Whigs  were  much  chagrined  at 
this  outcome  of  the  Whig  triumph.  The  policy 
of  the  President  appeared  to  them  to  be  in  har- 
mony with  that  of  the  antislavery  Whigs  of  the 
North.  His  most  influential  adviser  and  counsellor 
was  Senator  Seward,  of  New  York,  whose  ambi- 
tion it  had  been  to  make  of  the  Whig  party  the 
chief  organ  for  opposition  to  slavery.  During 
the  campaign  Seward  had  frankly  admitted 
that  he  would  prefer  not  to  have  a  slaveholder 
at  the  head  of  the  Whig  ticket ;  but  he  urged  that 
antislavery  Whigs  should  all  the  more  be  faithful 
to  the  party.  In  time  they  would  thus  control  the 
organization,  dictate  its  policy,  and  name  its  can- 
didates. He  maintained  that,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  the  country  would  be  governed  by  one  or 
the  other  of  two  great  national  political  parties. 
For  the  antislavery  men  in  those  two  parties  to 
draw  apart  into  a  third  party,  as  many  had  done 
in  '48,  tended  to  throw  the  control  of  both  the 

123 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

great  parties  into  the  hands  of  the  slavocracy.  If 
politics  should  be  allowed  to  take  a  natural  course, 
the  Whig  party  would  become  antislavery  and 
the  Democratic  party  proslavery;  and  then  the 
issue  could  be  met  and  settled  upon  its  merits. 

The  various  prophecies  which  antislavery  Whigs 
had  uttered  as  to  the  prevailing  antislavery  ten- 
dency in  the  Whig  party  seemed  in  process  of 
fulfilment  under  the  administration  of  Taylor. 
His  administrative  acts  harmonized  with  the 
wishes  of  the  antislavery  Whigs.  California  was 
organized  as  a  free  state,  and  the  President  encour- 
aged a  similar  course  on  the  part  of  the  people 
of  New  Mexico.  Nothing  was  indeed  said  about 
slavery,  but  that  institution  was  already  prohibited 
by  Mexican  law,  and  changes  in  the  laws  were  not 
proposed.  The  South  fully  believed  that  the 
same  thing  was  intended  for  New  Mexico  which 
had  happened  in  California.  Behold  the  irony  of 
their  fate !  The  Mexican  War  had  been  brought 
on  by  a  policy  of  aggression  from  the  South 
with  the  deliberate  intention  of  enlarging  the  area 
of  slavery.  Now,  at  the  hands  of  a  Southern 
planter,  the  chief  general  in  the  war,  the  greater 
part  of  the  territory  acquired  was  being  preempted 
for  freedom  ! 

As  incidental  to  the  controversy  with  Mexico, 
the  boundary  of  Texas  had  been  greatly  enlarged. 
When  it  was  discovered  that  the  Whig  administra- 
tion was  carrying  out  a  policy  which  would  make 
New  Mexico  permanently  free,  a  plan  was  devised 

124 


THE   LAST  WHIG  ADMINISTRATION 

for  extending  the  boundary  of  Texas  so  as  to 
include  the  greater  part  of  that  territory.  The 
state  militia  of  Texas  was  to  advance  into  New 
Mexico  and  secure  submission  from  the  territorial 
population  to  the  authorities  of  the  state  of  Texas. 
But  the  soldier  President  was  quite  at  home  in 
dealing  with  such  a  plot.  He  left  no  one  in  doubt 
of  his  ability  and  his  determination  to  defend  the 
boundaries  of  the  territory  against  the  proposed 
aggression  of  the  state,  and  the  conspiracy  came 
to  naught. 

And  so  it  came  about  that,  without  the  formal 
enactment  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  and  under  a 
Whig  administration,  all  the  territory  acquired  by 
treaty  from  Mexico  was  being  secured  for  free 
labor.  The  President,  with  the  cooperation  of  the 
antislavery  Whigs,  was  inflexible  in  his  policy. 
He  repudiated  all  compromises.  The  new  terri- 
tory needed  local  government,  and  he  would  have 
the  free  people  who  lived  in  the  territory  form 
for  themselves  such  a  government  as  suited  them. 
Then,  when  the  question  of  the  admission  of  the 
new  states  came  before  Congress,  he  would  have 
Congress  pass  upon  that  question  separately  and 
alone,  without  vexing  combination  with  other  leg- 
islation. 

It  was  an  immense  advantage  that  this  business 
was  in  the  hands  of  a  Southern  slaveholder.  He 
knew  the  South,  and  the  South  was  coming  to 
know  him,  much  to  its  surprise  and  disappointment. 
The  slaveholders  were  greatly  excited.  The  labor 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

of  thirty  years  appeared  to  be  lost.  Some  of  the 
Southern  Whigs  had  an  especial  grievance.  They 
had  voted  for  Taylor,  expecting  that  he  would 
favor  their  slaveholding  interests.  They  relied 
upon  the  fact  that  he  was  one  of  themselves. 
When  they  saw  him  relentless  in  his  opposition 
to  the  Clay  compromises  and  determined  to  carry 
out  what  they  regarded  as  his  astonishing  antislav- 
ery  policy,  they  were  grieved  and  disheartened. 

In  June,  1850,  after  a  year  of  intense  excite- 
ment in  the  South  over  the  status  of  the  new 
territory ;  after  four  months  of  debating  over 
the  Clay  compromises  ;  after  a  meeting  of  dele- 
gates from  the  Southern  states  which  had  been 
held  at  Nashville,  Tennessee,  to  unite  the  South  in 
an  effective  demand  upon  the  North,  had  resulted 
in  practical  failure,  the  Whig  members  of  Con- 
gress from  the  Gulf  states  held  a  secret  meeting 
to  devise  some  method  of  escape  from  apparently 
inevitable  defeat.  A  committee  was  appointed 
to  remonstrate  with  the  President,  threatening,  if 
need  be,  their  opposition.  "  The  delegates,"  says 
Schouler,  "  found  him  stubborn,  and  their  inter- 
view at  the  White  House  was  a  stormy  one. 
Would  he  pledge  himself  to  sign  no  bill  with  the 
Wilmot  Proviso  in  it  ?  The  old  warrior  replied 
that  he  would  sign  any  constitutional  bill  that  Con- 
gress presented  him.  Next  they  threatened  to 
break  up  the  Union.  '  Southern  officers,'  added 
one  of  them,  '  will  refuse  to  obey  your  orders  if  you 
send  troops  to  coerce  Texas.'  '  Then/  responded 

126 


THE   LAST  WHIG   ADMINISTRATION 

Taylor,  in  high  excitement,  '  I  will  command 
the  army  in  person  ;  and  any  man  who  is  taken  in 
treason  against  the  Union  I  will  hang  as  I  did  the 
deserters  and  spies  at  Monterey.'  "  l  To  all  appear- 
ance the  slaveholders  were  defeated.  The  anti- 
slavery  sentiment  of  the  country,  North  and  South, 
was  finding  effective  expression  in  the  national 
Whig  party,  and  the  Union  was  safe.  But  a  few 
days  after  this  conference  a  new  chapter  was 
opened  in  American  history  by  the  death  of  the 
Whig  President. 

Had  President  Taylor  lived  it  is  probable  that 
the  compromise  measures  of  1850  would  have  been 
defeated,  California  would  probably  still  have 
been  admitted  as  a  free  state,  Texas  would  have 
been  confined  within  narrower  limits,  the  Union 
would  not  have  been  divided,  and  the  Whig  party 
would  have  drawn  to  itself  the  support  of  all  classes 
who  were  in  favor  of  restricting  slavery  within  its 
existing  limits.  In  a  most  dramatic  way  Henry 
Clay  had  counted  upon  his  fingers  five  wounds 
which  the  President's  insistent  demand  that  Cali- 
fornia should  be  admitted  as  an  act  by  itself  would 
leave  unhealed.  Thomas  H.  Benton  irreverently 
suggested  that  the  reason  there  were  not  more 
wounds  was  that  Clay  had  only  five  fingers.  But 
if  the  President  had  lived  there  was  one  wound 
which  probably  would  not  just  at  that  time  have 
been  opened.  There  would  have  been  no  new  law 
for  the  recovery  of  fugitives  from  bondage. 

1  Schouler's  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  V.,  p.  185. 
127 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

To  the  greatest,  the  ablest,  the  most  eminent  of 
the  brilliant  galaxy  of  Whig  statesmen  undoubtedly 
belongs  the  responsibility  for  the  disastrous  legis- 
lation known  as  the  Compromise  of  1850.  Henry 
Clay,  best  beloved  of  them  all,  was  a  compromiser 
by  nature ;  he  had  been  active  in  securing  the 
passage  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  in  1820;  he 
was  the  author  of  the  Compromise  tariff  of  1833; 
and  by  indomitable  personal  devotion  and  untiring 
effort  he  formulated  and  carried  through  Congress 
the  various  provisions  of  the  Omnibus  Bill._ 
Alarmed  at  the  virulence  of  the  sectional  antago- 
nism manifested  in  the  discussion  of  the  questions 
to  be  settled  after  the  close  of  the  Mexican  War, 
and  fearing  for  the  integrity  of  the  Union,  Clay 
once  more  offered  his  mediatorial  services  for 
smoothing  away  the  difficulties.  He  has  himself 
summed  up  the  substance  of  the  eight  resolutions, 
which  he  trusted  would  accomplish  his  object,  as  a 
mutual  forbearance  —  forbearance  by  the  North  to 
insist  upon  the  application  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso 
to  Utah  and  New  Mexico  ;  forbearance  by  the 
South  to  insist  upon  the  express  introduction  of 
slavery  into  those  territories.  There  were  provi- 
sions by  which  California  was  to  be  admitted  as 
a  free  state ;  the  slave  trade  was  to  be  abolished 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  while  slavery  should 
remain  ;  a  stringent  fugitive  slave  law,  which  the 
slave-owners  had  long  demanded,  was  to  be  enacted ; 
the  Texan  claim  to  a  large  part  of  New  Mexico 
should  be  quieted  with  a  large  money  indemnity. 

128 


THE   LAST   WHIG   ADMINISTRATION 

No  interference  with  the  Missouri  Compromise 
was  suggested,  and  no  application  of  the  doctrine 
of  popular  sovereignty  to  the  new  territories. 
^10  the  support  of  the  provisions  of  the  Compro- 
mise, Daniel  Webster  lent  the  weight  of  his  great 
intellect  and  his  persuasive  voice.  Doubtless  he 
also  believed  the  Union  to  be  in  danger.  Devotion 
to  the  Union  had  become  in  the  North  almost  a 
religion.  Northern  Democrats  believed  in  the 
Union.  Whigs  everywhere  were  Unionists  from 
the  nature  of  their  political  principles.  Aboli- 
tionists nearly  all  truly  loved  the  Union.  _  Except 
among  the  few  despised  and  uninfluejfttlal  Garri- 
sonian  abolitionists,  the  feeling>»f  nationality  had 
been,  since  the  Hartford  Convention,  in  1815,  con- 
tinually gaining  strength,  throughout  the  Northern 


e  ardent  advocates  of  the  Compromise  were 
all  devoted  to  the  Union.  At  the  same  time  it  did 
not  follow  that  those  who  opposed  the  measure 
wished  to  dissolve  the  bond  between  the  states. 
President  Taylor  did  not  believe  the  Union  to  be 
endangered.  William  H.  Seward  opposed  the  policy 
of  compromise,  but  he  was  no  less  a  consistent 
lover  of  the  Union.  But  some  of  the  Southerners 
who  worked  most  strenuously  against  the  Compro- 
mise were  already  convinced  secessionists  and 
holders  of  radical  states-rights  views.  Though 
they  were  not  yet  numerous,  they  fully  believed 
that  only  through  secession  could  the  South  escape 
from  an  intolerable  position. 

K  129 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

In  midsummer  of  1850  the  Compromise  measure 
seemed  on  the  point  of  failure,  not  because  those 
opposed  to  it  were  less  friendly  than  its  advocates 
to  the  Union  of  the  states,  but  because  they  differed 
in  judgment  as  to  the  best  means  of  preserving  that 
Union.  With  the  death  of  the  President  the  hopes 
of  the  compromisers  revived.  The  bill,  which  had 
suffered  defeat  as  a  whole,  was  taken  up  again 
before  each  house,  section  by  section.  Millard 
Fillmore  had  become  President.  He  was  a  New 
York  Whig,  and,  like  Webster,  he  had  been 
associated  with  the  Whigs  of  acknowledged  anti- 
slavery  sentiments.  In  the  state  of  New  York 
the  spoils  of  office  counted  for  much,  and  there 
resulted  in  both  of  the  great  parties  a  tendency  to 
factional  division.1  Faction  in  the  Democratic  party 
of  the  state  led  to  the  election  of  the  Whig  Presi- 
dent. There  was  also  factional  division  among  the 
Whigs.  Seward  was  the  leader  of  one  section,  and 
Fillmore  of  the  other.  I  Either  from  conviction  or 
from  factional  opposition  the  new  President  gave 
in  his  support  to  the  compromising  Whigs.  And 
thus  supported  the  various  acts  were  passed. 

1  Thurlow  Weed's  Autobiography,  pp.  586-588. 


130 


CHAPTER   X 

THE  GREAT  WHIG  FAILURE 

AMONG  the  events  leading  to  the  disruption  of 
the  Union,  the  Compromise  of  1850  holds  a  promi- 
nent place.  The  question  may  be  asked  :  Could 
the  final  event  have  been  essentially  different? 
Could  the  tragedy  of  the  Civil  War  have  been  pre- 
vented ?  Is  it  likely  that  only  a  slight  modification 
of  policy  at  a  certain  juncture  would  have  led  in  the 
end  to  wholly  different  results  ?  In  the  reading 
and  in  the  writing  of  history  there  are  two  common 
errors.  A  book  has  been  written  entitled  Fifteen 
Decisive  Battles  of  the  World.  Spectacular  inter- 
est is  added  to  the  narrative  by  seeking  to  show 
that,  in  any  one  of  these  fifteen  battles,  had  victory 
perched  upon  the  opposite  banner  the  whole  after 
course  of  history  would  have  been  changed.  The 
course  of  history  is  made  to  turn  upon  a  series  of 
accidents.  This  is  one  form  of  error.  The  other 
is  the  blind  acceptance  of  that  which  has  happened 
as  in  the  nature  of  the  case  inevitable.  According 
to  this  view  man  is  not  a  free  agent.  Especially 
in  his  collective  capacity  is  he  a  victim  of  circum- 
stances. History  is  thus  made  to  teach  only  that 
which  has  been,  having  no  concern  about  what 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

might  have  been.  The  whole  end  and  aim  of  his- 
tory is  assumed  to  be  to  enable  one  to  understand 
the  dead  past.  In  all  past  ages  men  have  ap- 
peared as  victims  of  forces  which  they  could  not 
control.  To  understand,  then,  the  philosophy  of 
history  according  to  this  theory,  is  to  seize  upon 
these  forces  of  fate  and  admit  no  others.  Such  a 
view  of  history  tends  to  make  men  slaves. 

The  democratic  experiment  in  government  could 
never  have  been  tried  by  men  who  did  not  believe 
in  the  freedom  of  the  will.  A  fatalist  cannot  be 
a  democrat.  Democracy  assumes  a  belief  that 
human  beings  are  free  moral  agents.  The  demo- 
crat must  study  history,  not  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
covering inflexible  forces  of  fate,  but  rather  in 
order  to  discover  more  perfect  rules  for  moral  con- 
duct. The  democrat  aims  at  a  State  founded  upon 
the  free  choice  of  free  moral  beings.  It  is  good  for 
a  man  to  look  over  his  own  past  life  for  the  purpose 
of  finding  more  perfect  rules  for  an  amended  life. 
A  moral  man  must  ask  the  question  whether  at  a 
certain  point  in  the  past  he  did  not  grievously  err ; 
whether  he  is  not  now  suffering  evil  consequences 
from  former  wrong-doing.  A  life  of  continual  re- 
pentance and  amendment  is  the  normal  life  for 
a  highly  moral  man. 

It  is  likewise  good  for  a  nation  to  look  into  the 
past  conduct  of  its  citizens  with  reference  to  dis- 
covering rules  for  a  higher  moral  order ;  it  is  well 
to  raise  the  question  seriously  whether  the  body 
politic  is  not  now  disordered  on  account  of  cul- 
132 


THE   GREAT  WHIG  FAILURE 

pable  conduct  in  past  years.  There  is  no  moral 
progress  for  a  nation  except  upon  the  basis  of  re- 
pentance for  past  misconduct.  To  teach  that  the 
disruption  of  this  Union  and  the  horrible  tragedy  of 
our  Civil  War  are  events  that  could  not  have  been 
prevented,  is  as  immoral  as  it  is  to  teach  that  every 
normal  young  man  must  inevitably  lead  for  a  time 
an  immoral  life.  It  is  an  undeniable  truth  that 
the  Civil  War  occurred  as  the  result  of  a  series 
of  political  crimes  and  blunders.  And  the  most 
imperative  reason  for  a  thorough  and  profound 
study  of  the  period  is  that  those  crimes  and  blun- 
ders may  be  brought  to  light  and  similar  courses 
made  impossible  for  all  future  time. 

When  President  Taylor  died,  in  July,  1850, 
party  government  in  the  United  States  was  in  a 
more  nearly  normal  condition  than  it  had  ever 
been  before  or  has  ever  been  since.  The  two 
great  national  organizations  had  been  fifty  years 
in  building.  They  were  genuine  American  insti- 
tutions, and  they  were  the  only  truly  national 
American  institutions  which  had  in  their  very 
nature  a  great  binding  force.  While  the  slavery 
question  had  already  disrupted  the  most  influential 
of  the  churches,  the  great  national  parties  remained 
intact.  All  through  the  antislavery  agitation  they 
had  thus  far  grown  stronger  and  more  efficient. 
Within  the  two  parties  were  included  nearly  all 
the  people.  The  abolitionists  were  few.  Many 
of  the  Free-soilers  had  returned  to  the  Democratic 
party,  and  the  remainder  stood  ready  to  be  ab- 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

sorbed  into  the  Whig  party  as  soon  as  the  obvious 
tendency  there  toward  a  policy  for  limiting  the 
institution  of  slavery  should  become  sufficiently 
decisive.  The  two  parties  commanded  the  moral 
support  of  the  whole  people  as  no  two  parties  have 
since  done.  The  spoils  system  had  not  yet  worked 
its  most  serious  injury  to  the  party  system.  The 
parties  were  great  national  organs  well  adapted  to 
discovering  the  average  opinion  and  embodying  it 
in  national  conduct.  The  largest  voting  strength 
of  the  Whig  party  was  in  the  North,  yet  it  was 
strong  and  influential  in  the  South  as  well.  There 
were  influential  Whig  families  in  the  South  who 
were  proud  <of  the  name  and  whose  descendants 
are  to  this  day  proud  of  their  Whig  ancestry. 

The  strength  of  the  national  sentiment  opposed 
to  the  extension  of  slavery  was  concentrated  in 
the  Whig  party,  which  was  in  a  position  to  give 
effective  expression  to  that  sentiment.  On  that 
ground  the  party,  as  a  party,  opposed  the  annexa- 
tion of  Texas.  With  Henry  Clay  as  leader,  the 
campaign  of  1844  was  conducted  with  restriction 
of  the  peculiar  institution  as  the  chief  issue.  Cas- 
sius  M.  Clay,  a  Kentucky  abolitionist,  urged  North- 
ern abolitionists  to  vote  the  Whig  ticket  as  the 
surest  way  to  advance  the  cause  of  opposition  to 
slavery.  Four  years  later,  in  1848,  the  extreme 
proslavery  section  of  the  Democratic  party  of  the 
South  sought  to  form  a  coalition  party  on  sectional 
issues,  but  the  Whig  party  resisted  the  pressure 
and  gave  in  every  Southern  state  a  large  vote  for 

'34 


THE   GREAT   WHIG   FAILURE 

the  national  party.  Undoubtedly,  as  it  became 
more  and  more  evident  that  the  Whig  party  was 
to  become  the  national  organ  for  resisting  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery  into  the  newly  acquired  territory, 
extreme  proslavery  Whigs  might  have  been  in- 
duced to  transfer  their  allegiance  to  the  Democratic 
party,  but  a  corresponding  number  of  Union  and 
antislavery  Democrats  would  have  tended  toward 
the  Whig  party.  Of  this  latter  class  was  Thomas 
H.  Benton  of  Missouri,  a  lifelong  and  consistent 
Democrat,  but  strongly  inclined  to  break  with  his 
party  when  its  proslavery  attitude  became  pro- 
nounced. Had  the  Whig  party  held  its  ground 
in  respect  to  the  extension  of  slavery,  no  party 
of  political  importance  would  have  been  formed 
on  sectional  lines.  Had  no  party  been  formed  o.n 
sectional  lines,  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that 
there  would  have  been  no  disruption  of  the  Union 
and  no  Civil  War,  and  the  institution  of  slavery 
would  have  been  placed  in  a  position  for  speedy 
and  peaceful  elimination. 

The  so-called  Compromise  of  1850  proved  the 
beginning  of  the  end  of  the  Whig  party,  and  laid 
the  foundation  for  the  great  tragedy.  The  men 
who  were  responsible  for  this  act  should  have  been 
wiser.  Daniel  Webster  had  warned  the  Southern 
slaveholders  fourteen  years  earlier  that  the  aboli- 
tionists of  the  North  were  actuated  by  sincere 
religious  motives,  which  must  be  respected.1  Anti- 
slavery  sentiment  had,  in  the  meantime,  grown 

1  Curtis's  Life  of  Webster,  Vol.  I.,  p.  518. 
'35 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

no  weaker.  It  had  not  become  less  religious  nor 
less  worthy  of  respect.  It  was  an  unaccountable 
lack  of  political  sagacity  which  permitted  L)aniel 
Webster  and  Henry  Clay  to  give  their  support  to 
a  more  stringent  fugitive  slave  law.  They  well 
knew  the  state  of  Northern  sentiment  on  that 
question,  and  Henry  Clay  understood  that  a  slave- 
trader  or  a  slave-hunter  was,  even  in  the  South, 
a  despised  and  reprobated  man,  who  could  not  be 
admitted  into  good  society.  He  knew  also  that 
the  people  of  the  North  were  as  proud  in  their 
way  as  the  people  of  the  South,  and  that  the  people 
of  the  North  were  just  then  not  in  a  state  of  mind 
to  enter  heartily  into  a  copartnership  which  the 
Southern  people  themselves  despised.  They  had 
no  more  respect  for  a  slave-trader  or  a  man-stealer 
than  had  the  haughty  Southerners.  Moreover, 
Webster  knew,  or  he  ought  to  have  known,  that  a 
very  large  proportion  of  the  Northern  people  had 
reached  the  religious  conviction  that  it  was  a  hei- 
nous sin  not  to  assist  a  brother  man  in  his  efforts 
to  escape  from  the  thraldom  of  slavery.  Amus- 
ing tales  are  told  in  connection  with  the  history  of 
the  famous  Underground  Railway  which  show 
that  the  natural  human  sympathy  underlying  such 
convictions  was  not  confined  to  avowed  aboli- 
tionists. Levi  Coffin,  a  long-headed  old  Quaker 
in  Ohio,  who  had  no  small  experience  in  the  con- 
duct of  fugitives  toward  the  north  star,  would 
sometimes  boldly  confront  some  loud-mouthed  sup- 
porter of  the  law,  who  boasted  of  his  willingness 

136 


THE   GREAT  WHIG   FAILURE 

to  assist  in  returning  a  negro  to  slavery,  with  a 
concrete  opportunity  to  make  his  boast  good. 
Coming  upon  the  man  when  off  his  guard,  he 
would  present  himself  as  a  stranger  who  was  aid- 
ing a  negro  mother  with  her  little  baby  to  a  land 
of  freedom.  "  And  would  the  stranger  be  so  kind 
as  to  lend  a  helping  hand?"  Automatically  the 
hand  of  the  stranger  would  reach  for  his  pocket,' 
and  before  he  knew  what  he  was  doing  he  would 
have  violated  the  law  and  assisted  a  fugitive  from 
service.  The  men  were  very  few,  North  or  South, 
who  really  enjoyed  putting  the  bloodhound  on 
the  track  of  a  negro  mother  who  was  seeking  to 
carry  her  child  to  a  land  of  liberty.  The  Southern 
planter  who  availed  himself  of  the  services  of  the 
slave-catcher  would  not  allow  his  children  to  asso- 
ciate with  the  children  of  a  man  who  would  follow 
such  a  business. 

Among  the  five  wounds  which  Clay  boasted 
that  his  compromise  bill  was  to  heal,  one  was  the 
demand  for  a  more  stringent  fugitive  slave  law. 
But  there  was  already  a  law  for  the  recovery  of 
fugitives,  and  the  people  of  the  North  would  not 
obey  that  law.  They  would  not  obey  it  because 
they  believed  it  commanded  an  immoral  act.  Was 
there  the  slightest  reason  for  believing  that  a  new 
law  on  that  subject  would  be  treated  with  greater 
reverence  and  respect  ?  And  besides,  there  was 
at  the  time  no  great  grievance.  The  negroes  were 
not  escaping  in  large  numbers.  Any  attempt  to 
turn  the^Northern  people  into  slave-hunters  was 

137 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

sure  to  aggravate  the  difficulty.  It  ought  to  have 
been  as  evident  before  its  passage  as  it  became 
very  soon  after  its  passage,  that  the  new  law  would 
but  add  to  the  occasions  for  conflict.  So  far, 
therefore,  as  the  question  of  the  fugitive  slave  was 
concerned,  the  thing  for  the  Whigs  to  do  was  to 
do  nothing.  The  disease  was  obviously  of  such  a 
nature  that  any  attempt  at  treatment  would  be 
injurious. 

Then,  as  to  the  disposition  of  the  territory 
newly  acquired,  the  strength  of  the  Whig  party 
was  to  sit  still.  California  was  already  practically  a 
free  state.  It  could  not  be  made  a  slave  state. 
Congress  would,  in  any  event,  have  been  com- 
pelled to  admit  it  as  a  free  state.  Without  any 
Wilmot  Proviso,  slavery  was  already  illegal  in  all 
of  the  new  territory.  If  the  Whig  party  had 
firmly  held  its  ground  and  done  nothing  about 
New  Mexico  and  Utah  except  to  maintain  their 
boundaries  against  the  aggression  of  Texas, 
there  would  have  been  no  serious  trouble  and  no 
bleeding  wound  would  have  been  opened.  After 
the  temporary  excitement  over  the  situation  in 
California,  political  movements  in  the  North  and 
the  South  would  have  fallen  back  into  the  even 
tenor  of  their  way.  It  would  have  been  evident  to 
all  that  the  South  had  played  for  a  wider  slave 
area  and  had  gotten  Texas,  while  a  sort  of  spe- 
cial providence  had  created  a  new  free  state  on  the 
Pacific  Coast.  To  the  sober  judgment  of  the 
South  there  would  have  appeared  no  reason  for 
138 


THE   GREAT  WHIG   FAILURE 

deep  and  abiding  enmity  on  account  of  this. 
A  dignified,  conservative,  strictly  national  policy 
was  opened  to  the  Whigs,  by  which  the  territorial 
situation  would  have  been  maintained  without 
change.  If  no  action  were  taken,  the  new  territory, 
being  already  free,  would  remain  free.  It  seems 
unaccountable  that  it  should  not  have  been  appar- 
ent to  any  statesman  of  the  period  that  any  posi- 
tive action  touching  slavery  in  the  territories 
would  but  increase  the  irritation  and  tend  to 
sectional  division.  Upon  a  policy  of  resistance  to 
change  for  the  sake  of  the  Union,  the  conservative, 
Union-loving  Southern  Whigs  would  have  held 
their  ground  as  an  effective  fighting  party.  All 
this  vantage  ground  was  lost  by  Clay's  bill  for 
the  organization  of  a  territorial  government  for 
Utah  and  New  Mexico  which  removed  the  legal 
restrictions  against  the  introduction  of  slavery. 

Part  of  the  territory  opened  for  the  admission 
of  slavery  by  the  compromise  act  was  north  of 
the  old  Missouri  Compromise  line.  There  was, 
from  the  first,  confusion  in  the  minds  of  many  as 
to  whether  the  Missouri  Compromise  did  not 
legally  apply  to  the  acquired  territory.  The  pro- 
slavery  faction  were  especially  outraged  because 
California  was  being  made  into  a  free  state,  not- 
withstanding a  part  of  its  territory  was  south  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise  line.  Now,  since  by  act 
of  Congress  in  1850  slavery  was  made  legally  pos- 
sible in  territory  north  of  that  line,  the  question  was 
definitely  raised  whether  the  old  compromise  were 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

not  repealed.  If  the  old  law  were  abrogated, 
then  slave  property  had  legal  access,  not  only  to 
Utah,  but  to  Kansas  and  Nebraska  as  well.  For 
immediate  practical  purposes  it  made  little  differ- 
ence whether  or  not  slaveholders  could  carry 
their  property  into  Utah;  it  was,  however,  of 
immense  practical  import  whether  or  not  slaves 
could  be  taken  into  the  territory  on  the  western 
border  of  Missouri. 

Clay's  prescription  for  closing  a  bleeding  wound 
in  the  body  politic  inaugurated  a  conflict  for  the 
possession  of  Kansas  which  was  not  arrested 
until  the  country  was  already  in  the  throes  of  civil 
war.  This  was  the  logical  course  of  events : 
First,  in  the  mind  of  a  few  political  leaders  in 
the  South  the  idea  arose  that  the  act  of  1850  had 
repealed  the  Missouri  Compromise;  then,  in  1854, 
an  explicit  act  of  repeal  was  passed;  later,  in 
1857,  a  decision  was  reached  in  the  Supreme 
Court  to  the  effect  that  the  law  was  originally 
unconstitutional,  and  that  the  slaveholder  had 
always  had  under  the  Constitution  a  right  of 
access  to  all  the  territory  of  the  United  States, 
which  right  could  not  be  taken  from  him  by  act  of 
Congress.  The  Whig  leaders  may  be  excused  for 
not  foreseeing  all  the  direct  and  indirect  conse- 
quences to  arise  from  the  reopening  of  the  slavery 
question  in  the  territories.  They  are  not,  however, 
to  be  excused  for  not  foreseeing  that  the  act  would 
tend  immediately  and  directly  to  aggravate  the 
conflict  which  it  professed  to  allay. 

140 


THE   GREAT  WHIG   FAILURE 

The  Whig  party  was  under  the  strongest  obliga- 
tions to  remain  true  to  its  policy.  The  country 
had  been  embroiled  in  a  Democratic  war,  which 
was  against  the  better  conscience  of  the  nation,  for 
the  purpose  of  getting  an  increased  area  for  slav- 
ery. The  result  was  the  acquisition  of  a  large 
territory  into  which  it  would  be  impossible  to 
carry  slavery.  John  C.  Calhoun  was  one  of  the 
first  of  the  Southern  leaders  to  comprehend  this 
fact  clearly.  From  his  point  of  view  there  was 
nothing  left  for  the  Gulf  states  but  to  form  an 
independent  Confederacy  or  to  secure  a  change 
in  the  national  Constitution  such  as  would  give 
to  each  state  in  the  Union  practically  independent 
powers.  It  would  have  been  quite  in  order  for 
Henry  Clay,  as  the  leader  of  the  Whig  campaign  of 
1844,  now  to  remind  his  Democratic  friends  of  his 
oft-repeated  prediction  that  the  annexation  of 
Texas  would  lead  to  a  war  with  Mexico,  and  that 
a  war  with  Mexico  would  probably  result  in  many 
evil  consequences.  The  Whig  might  well  have 
said :  "  Notwithstanding  our  repeated  warnings 
you  Democrats  went  into  the  war.  You  ought 
therefore  to  be  thankful  that  the  evils  are  not 
greater  than  they  are.  You  ought  at  least  to  accept 
the  results  of  your  own  conduct  like  men." 

There  was  no  doubt  much  genuine  bad  feeling 
among  the  leaders  of  the  South  on  account  of  the 
outcome  of  the  war.  But  Henry  Clay  made  the 
great  mistake  of  his  life  when  he  mistook  this  bad 
feeling  for  a  dangerous  and  fatal  wound.  Thou- 

141 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

sands  of  individuals  are  every  year  hastened  into 
untimely  graves  because  somebody  makes  a  mis- 
take about  a  temporary  bad  feeling  which  is  inci- 
dental in  an  essentially  sound  body  to  an  entirely 
normal  process  of  rapid  recovery  from  a  tempo- 
rary ill.  The  uncomfortable  feeling  is  mistaken 
for  disease,  and  the  poor  victim  is  doctored  to 
death.  Like  errors  may  be  made  in  respect  to 
distempers  in  the  body  politic.  In  1850  the  slave- 
holders were  in  a  remarkably  favorable  condition 
to  be  simply  let  alone.  The  bad  feeling  which 
they  endured  was  perfectly  healthy,  normal,  and 
robustly  recuperative  in  its  natural  results.  It 
arose  from  the  discovery  of  mistakes  for  which  no 
one  was  to  blame  but  themselves.  They  had 
expected  their  policy  as  to  Mexico  and  Texas  to 
strengthen  their  position ;  it  had,  in  fact,  weakened 
it,  and  it  was  impossible  to  attach  any  serious 
blame  to  any  party  or  any  person  apart  from 
themselves.  They  felt  that  their  peculiar  institu- 
tion was  insecure ;  yet  for  their  life  they  could  not 
point  out  anything  external  to  their  own  section 
which  was  fitted  to  make  it  insecure.  The  North- 
ern abolition  propaganda  had  been  going  on  for 
twenty  years,  yet  it  still  commanded  little  respect 
and  secured  little  support.  The  people  of  the 
North  were,  in  fact,  remarkably  considerate  toward 
the  South.  The  Southern  disease  was  what  is 
known  as  wounded  pride.  In  an  unusually  spec- 
tacular and  frantic  manner  they  had  committed 
themselves  to  the  defence  of  an  institution  which, 

142 


THE   GREAT   WHIG   FAILURE 

even  without  any  serious  and  important  external 
attack,  seemed  destined  to  decay.  The  very  last 
thing  to  be  done  for  a  man  who  is  a  victim  of  this 
sort  of  pride  is  to  coddle  him  and  treat  him  like  a 
baby.  In  the  end  he  will  choose  hanging  or  will 
incur  any  fate  rather  than  submit  to  such  treat- 
ment. Jackson  and  Taylor  both  exhibited  the 
true  instinct  of  the  Southern  gentleman  when  they 
proposed  hanging  as  the  rightful  remedy  for  cer- 
tain kinds  of  possible  conduct  growing  out  of 
wounded  pride.  Clay's  proposals  for  compromise 
increased  the  sense  of  wounded  pride,  because 
there  was  in  them  the  element  of  patronage  and 
pity.  The  Southern  planter  would  submit  to  any- 
thing rather  than  these.  He  realized  that  he  was 
committed  to  the  support  of  a  peculiar  institution 
which  was  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  yet  he 
had  made  up  his  mind  to  stand  by  it  like  a  man. 

But  Webster  and  Clay  trembled  for  the  fate  of 
the  Union.  They  were  undoubtedly  for  the  time 
being  really  alarmed.  In  politics,  as  in  war,  there 
is  scarcely  anything  so  dangerous  as  that  leaders 
should  become  unmanned  by  fear.  The  bi-party 
system  in  politics  is  itself  a  perpetual  substitute  for 
civil  war.  Battles  are  fought  involving  the  entire 
body  politic,  and  great  victories  are  won,  yet  no 
one  is  slain.  Only  politically  are  men  decapitated. 
But  it  is  fatal  for  leaders  of  political  parties  to  act 
or  to  appear  to  act  under  panic.  If  General  Jack- 
son was  frightened  when  the  Nullifiers  were  ram- 
pant in  South  Carolina,  he  did  not  let  any  one 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

know  it.  When  the  members  of  Congress  from 
the  South  sent  a  delegation  to  frighten  General 
Taylor,  the  old  hero  was  thrown  into  a  fine  frenzy 
of  excitement,  but  in  it  there  was  not  a  suggestion 
of  fear.  It  was  not  at  all  likely  that  there  would 
have  been  any  serious  attempt  to  disrupt  the  Union 
in  1850  if  the  Compromise  had  not  been  enacted. 
If  such  an  attempt  had  been  made,  the  conditions 
were  ideal  for  bringing  it  to  naught,  and  demon- 
strating the  essential  strength  of  the  Union.  The 
disruptionists  would  have  been  met  and  vanquished 
by  men  in  their  own  section.  It  would  have  been 
impossible  at  that  time  to  unite  the  people  of  any 
one  section  in  a  secession  movement.  Such  an 
attempt  then  would  have  probably  rendered  any 
later  attempt  futile.  The  time  was  favorable  for 
meeting  the  disunion  sentiment  with  firmness  and 
courage.  But  the  system  of  petty  annoyances 
inaugurated  by  the  Whig  compromise  was  to  the 
disunionists  of  the  South  just  what  was  needed  to 
enable  them  to  present,  ten  years  later,  a  solid 
front  in  defence  of  the  alleged  rights  of  their 
section. 

The  political  situation  in  1850  furnished  the 
Whig  party  just  what  it  had  long  needed.  It  had 
suffered  for  want  of  a  clearly  defined  party  issue 
in  which  large  numbers  of  the  people  were  deeply 
interested.  In  this  respect  the  party  had  been 
peculiarly  unfortunate.  The  party  name  had  been 
identified  with  no  issue  of  enduring  popular  inter- 
est. In  1832  the  National  Republicans  engaged 

144 


THE   GREAT  WHIG   FAILURE 

in  a  campaign  in  which  they  advocated  the  rechar- 
tering  of  the  national  bank  as  a  chief  issue.  De- 
feat ensued,  and  the  party  never  again  made  the 
bank  issue  prominent  in  campaign  politics.  In 
1836  the  Whig  party  made  Harrison,  a  former 
Democrat,  its  candidate,  and  presented  no  special 
issue  apart  from  opposition  to  Jackson  and  the 
Van  Buren  Democracy.  In  1840,  when  the  whole 
country  went  wild  over  the  triumphant  campaign 
of  the  Whig  party,  no  political  issue  was  presented 
save  criticism  of  the  administration.  The  party 
was  unfortunate  in  the  death  of  its  President  and 
the  accession  of  a  Vice-President  who  was  not  in 
harmony  with  the  party  leaders.  At  last,  under 
the  leadership  of  Clay  in  1844,  a  definite  issue  was 
presented  in  which  the  people  were  greatly  inter- 
ested. Opposition  to  the  extension  of  slave  terri- 
tory was  the  party  platform.  The  Whigs  were 
defeated  and  slave  territory  was  extended ;  but,  as 
one  of  the  unforeseen  and  incidental  results  of  the 
Mexican  War,  the  free  territory  of  the  nation  was 
much  more  extended.  The  antislavery  reaction 
incident  to  the  expansion  of  slave  territory  at  the 
cost  of  a  war  was  sufficient  to  turn  the  scale  in  the 
election  in  1848  in  favor  of  the  Whigs. 

A  vital  issue  of  great  popular  interest  was  thus, 
in  a  manner,  thrust  upon  the  party,  and  to  gain 
the  full  advantage  of  the  exceptionally  favorable 
conditions  nothing  was  required  of  the  party  but 
to  fulfil  its  traditional  r61e  of  conservatism  and 
moderation.  It  should  have  been  assumed  that, 

L  145 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

since  the  party  had  opposed  the  war  through  its 
opposition  to  slavery,  it  would  take  no  positive  step 
to  introduce  slavery  into  the  free  territory  acquired 
from  Mexico.  This  was  all  that  was  demanded  to 
enable  the  Whig  party  to  draw  to  itself  the  greater 
part  of  the  antislavery  forces  North  and  South. 
The  Whigs  ought  to  have  confronted  the  Democrats 
on  that  issue.  It  was  a  Democratic  administration 
which  had  added  free  as  well  as  slave  territory  to 
this  country.  The  Whigs  should  have  held  the 
Democrats  to  the  political  consequences  of  their 
own  acts. 

There  was  another  issue  of  even  more  wide- 
spread popular  interest  than  the  extension  of 
slavery,  and  that  was  the  preservation  of  the 
Union.  The  Whig  party  could  have  saved  the 
Union  without  a  civil  war.  There  may  have  been 
other  agencies  whereby  this  might  have  been  ac- 
complished, but  this  is  the  one  most  easily  demon- 
strated and  understood.  The  secessionists  early 
reached  the  conclusion  that  the  Union  could  not 
be  divided  except  by  the  formation  of  political 
parties  upon  sectional  lines.  Washington  had 
foreseen  this  special  form  of  danger  to  the  Union. 
President  Taylor  in  his  inaugural  address  called 
attention  to  his  solemn  warning.  The  national 
Democratic  party  had  adopted  in  1840  an  elaborate 
platform  in  which  is  set  forth  the  importance  of 
the  liberty  of  the  individual  and  the  dangers  attend- 
ant upon  centralized  government.  The  Democrats 
assumed  for  themselves  the  guardianship  of  the 
146 


THE   GREAT   WHIG   FAILURE 

rights  of  our  states  under  the  Constitution.  This 
platform,  with  only  slight  variations,  was  repeated 
in  '44  and  again  in  '48.  It  was  of  great  advantage 
to  the  Democrats  to  have  prepared  this  form  of 
sound  words  which  needed  no  change  from  decade 
to  decade.  It  is  for  the  most  part  good  Democratic 
doctrine  to-day.  All  good  Democrats  still  believe 
in  properly  guarding  the  constitutional  rights  of 
the  states.  The  Whig  party  might  have  replied  to 
this  Democratic  declaration  of  faith,  plank  by  plank, 
with  telling  effect,  conceding  the  proper  rights  of 
states,  but  calling  attention  to  the  danger  to  the 
Union  arising  from  an  undue  emphasis  of  those 
rights.  The  importance  of  the  integrity  of  the 
Union  should  have  been  strongly  emphasized. 
Thus  the  national  party,  as  a  party,  would  have 
appeared  as  a  saviour  and  guardian  of  the  Union. 
Nullifiers  and  disunionists  would  have  found  no 
place  in  its  ranks.  They  would  have  been  natur- 
ally attracted  to  the  party  of  state  rights.  Such 
an  issue,  clearly  denned,  would  have  given  the 
Whigs  an  immense  advantage  in  the  South  as  well 
as  in  the  North. 

Divided  upon  such  basal  political  principles,  the 
conduct  of  the  two  parties  would  quickly  have 
passed  beyond  the  realm  of  mere  sentiment ;  it 
would  have  involved  a  programme  of  policy.  Un- 
limited areas  of  rich  lands  were  to  be  occupied. 
The  party  of  the  Union  would  have  favored  a  lib- 
eral policy  in  the  opening  up  of  the  lands  to  the 
settlement  of  freemen,  and  their  opponents  would 

'47 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

have  found  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  resist  them. 
Then  there  was  the  good  old  issue  of  internal  im- 
provements. The  time  was  ripe  for  such  an  issue 
to  strike  the  popular  fancy.  The  era  for  the  crea- 
tion of  a  railway  and  a  telegraph  system  had  fully 
come.  These  were  a  perpetual  demonstration  of 
the  need  of  an  efficient  general  government.  The 
railway  as  a  part  of  the  national  highway  system 
is  by  nature  a  federal  institution.  The  shipping 
interests  of  the  United  States  were  also  assuming 
large  proportions.  The  improvement  of  rivers 
and  harbors  by  the  general  government  was  be- 
coming a  recognized  necessity.  The  popular  side 
of  this  issue  belonged  of  right  to  the  Whigs  as  the 
party  set  to  guard  the  interests  of  the  Union. 
Again,  there  was  the  conflict  between  protection 
and  free  trade.  The  tariff  of  1846,  enacted  by  the 
Democrats  and  moderately  protective,  was  in  full 
working  order.  It  would  have  been  natural  for 
the  Whigs  from  their  traditional  position  to  give 
expression  to  a  sentiment  favorable  to  a  modifica- 
tion of  this  law  in  the  direction  of  a  strengthening 
of  its  protective  features ;  while  the  Democracy 
would  naturally  have  been  inclined  to  make  effec- 
tive a  sentiment  favoring  further  advances  toward 
free  trade.  As  to  the  United  States  Bank,  the 
Whigs  were  under  no  particular  necessity  for  reviv- 
ing that  issue  until  such  time  as  there  was  devel- 
oped a  sense  of  failure  on  the  part  of  the  separate 
state  systems.  Then  it  would  have  been  in  order 
for  the  old  party  to  offer  relief  at  the  hands  of  the 
148 


THE   GREAT  WHIG   FAILURE 

federal  government.  Clearly,  had  the  party  been 
ably  led  there  were  live  issues  at  hand  in  abun- 
dance, well  fitted  to  furnish  material  for  an  endur- 
ing platform  involving  policies  of  great  popular 
interest,  such  as  would  speedily  place  the  party  in 
an  invulnerable  position.  And  all  were  strictly 
consistent  with  dominant  Whig  tendencies. 

What,  then,  would  have  become  of  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery  ?  Slavery  would  have  gone  just  as 
the  secessionists  of  the  day  said  it  was  going. 
They  said  that  if  it  were  confined  to  its  present 
limits  it  would  die.  The  Whig  party,  as  a  party 
of  law  and  order,  would  have  taken  more  and 
more  effective  measures  against  murdering  men 
for  publishing  antislavery  papers.  The  party 
would  have  opposed  the  policy  of  burning  in  the 
public  streets  antislavery  literature  unlawfully 
taken  from  the  United  States  mails.  The  hearts 
of  the  opponents  of  slavery  would  have  warmed 
to  the  Whigs.  Nearly  all  the  abolitionists  would 
have  become  known  as  regular  voters  of  the  Whig 
ticket  at  popular  elections. 

The  policy  here  outlined  for  the  Whigs  in  1850 
would  have  left  the  party  entirely  non-committal 
on  the  subject  of  slavery  within  the  states.  Many 
Southern  Whigs  were  ardent  believers  in  slavery, 
but  for  the  most  part  they  would  have  remained  in 
the  party.  As  Whig  statesmen  they  would  have 
been  confronted  by  Democrats  bent  upon  disrupt- 
ing the  Union  for  the  sake  of  slavery.  Here  the 
proslavery  Whig  leader  would  have  found  himself 
149 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

supported  by  the  abolitionists.  Now,  so  far  as  I 
know,  no  human  organization  has  ever  developed 
such  unlimited  power  to  forgive  sins,  under  cer- 
tain conditions,  as  a  living  and  active  political 
party.  An  earnest  party  leader  is  sure  in  time  to 
forgive  any  man,  or  any  class  of  men,  who  through 
evil  report  and  good  report  vote  the  regular  party 
ticket.  The  proslavery  Whig  leader  would  have 
begun  to  forgive  the  faithful  antislavery  voter. 
He  would  have  dropped  a  word  now  and  then  to 
show  his  forgiving  spirit.  He  would  also  desire 
himself  to  have  forgiveness  at  the  hands  of  his  party 
friends,  and  would  have  made  his  conduct  as  in- 
offensive as  he  could.  The  Whig  abolitionist,  on 
the  other  hand,  would,  under  these  circumstances, 
have  become  less  fanatical  and  more  rational.  He 
would  have  become  likewise  more  influential  in  his 
antislavery  propaganda.  Such  was  the  spirit  of 
the  age  that  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  any 
political  party  to  place  itself  in  effective  opposition 
to  the  excessive  demands  and  policies  of  the  ex- 
treme proslavery  party  without  rapidly  becoming 
indoctrinated  with  antislavery  sentiment.  The 
Free  Soil  party,  and  later  the  Republican  party, 
disavowed  any  intention  of  interfering  with  slavery 
in  the  states.  This  would,  of  course,  have  been 
the  position  of  the  Whig  party.  The  Whig  party 
in  the  South  would,  however,  have  become  the 
nucleus  for  the  organization  of  antislavery  forces 
within  the  Southern  states,  which  would  in  time 
have  effectually  dealt  with  the  subject.  No  excuse 

150 


THE   GREAT  WHIG   FAILURE 

would  have  been  left  for  the  union  of  classes 
within  a  given  section  under  the  plea  of  resistance 
to  foreign  aggression.  Under  the  mollifying,  uni- 
fying influences  of  a  great  national  party  organ- 
ization, Northern  abolitionists  and  Southern 
abolitionists  would  have  come  to  understand  each 
other.  The  race  problem  would  have  received 
due  recognition,  and  the  practical  control  of  poli- 
cies would  have  been  kept  out  of  the  hands  of 
fanatics  and  extremists. 

There  is  something  in  a  name.  From  the  stand- 
point of  Northern  politics  it  was  a  misfortune  that 
the  name  Whig  was  substituted  for  the  older  name 
National  Republican.  The  Whigs  always  main- 
tained that  they  were  themselves  the  true  Jef- 
fersonian  Republicans,  and  that  the  followers  of 
Jackson  and  Van  Buren  were  innovators,  the 
organizers  of  a  new  party  advocating  dangerous 
and  revolutionary  principles.  The  most  effective 
retort  of  the  Democrats  was  to  call  the  Whigs 
"  Federalists,"  and  the  change  in  name  seemed 
to  add  great  force  to  this  form  of  abuse.  Feder- 
alism was  associated  with  sympathy  for  England 
and  with  anti-democratic  tendencies.  The  name 
"Whig"  also  had  about  it  an  English  flavor. 
Among  Whig  leaders  in  the  North  there  were 
always  those  who  manifested  dissatisfaction  with 
the  name,  and  this  only  stimulated  their  political 
opponents  to  insist  upon  their  descent  from  the 
Federalists,  and  thus  bring  them  into  reproach. 

To  the  South,  however,  the  name  seemed  well 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

suited.  The  Southern  planter  liked  the  association 
with  the  Whigs  of  the  Revolution  and  with  the 
Whigs  of  England.  Just  at  the  time  when  the 
Monthly  Whig  Review  was  being  used  as  an  organ 
for  expressing  dissatisfaction  with  the  Whig  name 
it  contained  articles  from  Southern  writers  who 
gloried  in  the  name  and  in  all  its  historic  associa- 
tions. As  to  its  name,  therefore,  it  would  seem  that 
the  party  made  two  capital  mistakes.  The  first 
was  when  the  old  name  "  Republican,"  was  allowed 
to  fall  into  disuse  and  the  name  "  Whig  "  to  take 
its  place.  The  second  was  when  the  name  "  Whig  " 
was  allowed  at  a  critical  juncture  to  drop  out  and 
the  older  name  to  be  revived.  The  old  name, 
when  thus  restored,  was  the  name,  not  of  a  national 
party,  but  of  the  party  of  a  section  only. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW   AND  THE  ELECTION 
OF   1852 

A  WAVE  of  rejoicing  swepMhrough  the  land  after 
the  passage  of  the  last  of  the  compromise  meas- 
ures of  1850.  The  people  had  been  made  to  believe 
that  the  Union  was  threatened  with  imminent  de- 
struction, and  they  were  in  a  state  of  mind  to  give 
eager  acceptance  to  whatever  they  had  reason  to 
hope  would  avert  the  dreaded  disaster.  But  it  was 
a  national  calamity  that  the  saving  of  the  Union 
became  associated  with  a  fugitive  slave  law  which 
was  a  disgrace  to  civilization,  and  with  an  act 
legalizing  slavery  in  a  territory  which  Mexico 
had  made  free.  These  laws  did  not  create  the 
Union  sentiment,  which  would  have  been  quite  as 
strong  without  them.  Had  the  policy  of  Presi- 
dent Taylor  prevailed,  there  would  have  been  a  real 
compromise  which  would  have  tended  only  to  the 
preservation  of  the  Union.  Against  Texas,  a  slave 
state,  would  have  stood  California,  a  free  state,  and 
no  cause  would  have  remained  for  enduring  bitter- 
ness. There  might  not  have  been  as  many  public 
meetings  to  give  expression  to  hysterical  Union 
sentiment,  but  the  leaders  of  the  slaveholders  who 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

for  the  time  had  felt  themselves  most  aggrieved, 
would  have  accepted  the  situation  with  a  more 
real  and  lasting  respect  for  the  Union  and  the  party 
of  the  Union. 

The  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  drawn  to  please 
the  extreme  faction  of  the  secessionists.  It  was 
the  one  item  in  the  Omnibus  Bill  which  could  be 
utilized  to  soothe  their  wounded  pride,  and  it  was  so 
drawn  that  whatever  should  be  its  fate  in  Congress 
it  would  still  strengthen  the  secession  party.  So 
offensive  were  its  details  to  every  sense  of  justice 
and  humanity  that  the  slaveholders  themselves 
expected  it  to  be  defeated,  and  they  trusted  in 
that  contingency  to  be  able  to  fire  the  Southern 
heart  even  more  effectually  by  arraigning  North- 
ern statesmen  for  deliberately  refusing  to  give 
effect  to  a  part  of  the  national  Constitution.  But, 
should  the  bill  pass,  the  Southern  planters  did  not 
expect  to  be  thereby  made  more  secure  in  the 
possession  of  their  human  property.  They  had  no 
reason  for  believing  that  a  new  law  would  be  more 
effectively  enforced  than  the  old  one  had  been. 
They  by  this  time  understood  the  temper  of  the 
Northern  enemies  of  slavery  well  enough  to 
know  that  the  passage  of  such  a  law  would  be  re- 
ceived by  them  as  a  direct  and  intentional  insult, 
and  that  their  feelings  would  be  deeply  wounded. 
Such  was  indeed  the  effect,  but  there  was  also  a 
stiffening  of  the  spirit  of  resistance  and  an  increase 
in  the  number  of  those  determined  to  bid  defiance 
to  the  iniquitous  enactment. 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   LAW 

Along  with  the  great  public  meetings  held  to 
express  thanks  that  the  Union  had  been  saved, 
certain  other  assemblies  came  together  to  give  voice 
to  a  contrary  sentiment.  They  reprobated  in  the 
plainest  terms  the  action  of  the  national  lawmakers 
in  forcing  upon  the  country  a  law  obnoxious  to  the 
moral  sense  of  large  numbers  of  the  best  and  most 
intelligent  citizens.  Religious  feelings  were  deeply 
affected.  Sermons  were  preached  from  many  a 
pulpit  upon  the  exceeding  sinfulness  of  rendering 
obedience  to  an  immoral  law.  Not  only  was  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Act  branded  as  immoral,  it  was 
also  pronounced  by  able  jurists  to  be  in  some  of  its 
provisions  clearly  unconstitutional. 

It  was  determined  to  test  the  validity  of  the  law. 
Gerrit  Smith  and  a  Unitarian  minister  in  New 
York  headed  a  company  of  citizens  who  broke 
into  a  jail,  delivered  a  fugitive,  and  spirited  him 
away  to  Canada.  The  act  was  deliberate,  no  dis- 
guises were  used,  the  guilty  parties  publicly 
avowed  their  crime ;  but  their  intention  to  incur  a 
legal  trial  was  not  successful.  They  did  not  get 
themselves  arrested. 

Various  incidents  of  interest  in  this  discussion 
occurred  in  the  different  Northern  states.  Two 
order-loving  Quakers  in  Pennsylvania  joined  a 
crowd  of  negroes  who  were  defending  one  of  their 
number  from  arrest.  The  new  law  made  it  the 
duty  of  all  bystanders  to  assist,  at  the  command  of 
the  officers,  in  attempts  to  recover  a  fugitive,  and 
the  Quakers  were  ordered  to  join  in  the  slave-hunt. 

'55 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

They  refused  with  hot  indignation.  They  did, 
however,  strive  to  prevent  bloodshed,  but,  finding 
the  negroes  not  to  be  moved  from  their  purpose 
to  resist  to  the  bitter  end,  they  warned  the  pursu- 
ers of  the  fugitive  to  desist  upon  peril  of  their 
lives.  Refusing  to  heed  the  warning,  they  were 
shot  down  and  one  of  them  was  killed. 

In  1851  Daniel  Webster  travelled  through  the 
country,  seeking  by  means  of  his  great  personal  in- 
fluence and  his  persuasive  eloquence  to  mollify  pub- 
lic feeling  and  induce  the  unmanageable  antislavery 
people  to  yield  obedience.  At  Syracuse,  New  York, 
which  was  a  centre  of  opposition,  he  told  his  hear- 
ers that  those  who  meant  to  resist  the  law  were 
"traitors!  traitors!!  traitors!!!"  That  the  law 
ought  to  be  obeyed  and  would  be  enforced.  Shortly 
after  the  delivery  of  this  address  an  event  took 
place  which  showed  whether  or  not  the  great  man's 
oratory  had  had  its  desired  effect.  A  mulatto  man 
named  Jerry  who  had  lived  for  some  years  in  Syra- 
cuse was  suddenly  brought  before  the  authorities 
charged  with  being  a  slave  escaped  from  a  Missouri 
owner.  By  means  of  a  system  of  signals  long  before 
agreed  upon,  the  determined  opponents  of  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law  were  quickly  gathered  in  the  court 
where  the  trial  was  going  on.  A  premature  at- 
tempt at  rescue  failed,  but  a  second  one,  more  care- 
fully planned,  succeeded.  At  a  signal  the  doors 
and  windows  of  the  police  office  were  simultane- 
ously demolished ;  the  rescue  party  rushed  in,  sur- 
rounded and  overpowered  the  officers  by  mere 

156 


THE    FUGITIVE   SLAVE   LAW 

numbers,  taking  care  that  no  unnecessary  violence 
was  used.  The  manacled  negro  was  seized  and 
carried  to  a  vehicle  waiting  near,  by  which  he  was 
conveyed  hither  and  thither  about  the  town,  and 
then  concealed  for  several  days  at  the  home  of 
one  of  the  abolition  sympathizers.  Here  Jerry's 
shackles  were  removed,  his  injuries  cared  for,  and 
a  secure  refuge  provided  until  it  was  thought 
safe  to  convey  him  by  easy  stages  toward  the 
British  land  of  freedom  across  the  Lakes. 

For  this  famous  and  successful  violation  of  the 
law,  eighteen  of  those  engaged  in  it  were  indicted, 
but  repeated  efforts  to  convict  the  criminals  all 
failed.  It  was  found  impossible  to  empanel  a 
jury  upon  which  there  were  not  some  who  were 
incapacitated  for  acting  by  having  already  formed 
opinions  unfavorable  to  the  law. 

It  seems  to  have  been  generally  true  that  the 
increased  severity  of  the  law  made  it  far  more  diffi- 
cult to  enforce.  Even  in  the  case  of  the  fugitives 
who  were  recovered,  the  attendant  expense  was 
often  greater  than  the  value  of  the  property.  The 
hostility  to  the  atrocious  act  did  not  subside.  The 
leaders  of  moral  sentiment  —  ministers  of  the  gos- 
pel, poets,  essayists,  philosophers  —  counselled  dis- 
obedience. It  passes  comprehension  that  any 
reader  of  the  text  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  of 
1850  can  possibly  find  in  it  anything  whatever 
which,  under  existing  political  conditions,  could 
tend  to  a  union  of  hearts  between  the  differing 
sections.  Yet  it  is  said  that  the  far-reaching  pur- 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

pose  of  Webster  and  Clay  was  not  alone  to  pre- 
serve the  Union  of  States  but  to  join  heart  to  heart 
throughout  the  land. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  who  allege 
the  deliberate  object  of  those  who  dictated  the  law 
to  have  been  either  to  defeat  the  Compromise  Bill, 
or,  if  it  were  passed,  to  have  it  include  such  pro- 
visions as  would  irritate  and  enrage  the  moral 
leaders  of  the  North  to  such  an  extent  that  they 
would  be  driven  to  a  course  of  mob  violence,  which 
would  lead  to  a  reaction  of  opinion  in  favor  of  the 
South.  From  this  point  of  view  the  measure  is 
clearly  a  rational  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end, 
and  the  results  must  have  been  well  pleasing  to 
the  slave  power  as  proving  that  the  peace-loving, 
law-abiding,  moral,  and  religious  Northern  people 
could  also  be  driven,  under  given  conditions,  to 
engage  in  rioting  and  murder. 

The  Fugitive  Slave  Act  furnished  to  the  South- 
ern agitator  that  which  he  very  much  needed, 
namely,  ground  for  an  easily  defined  grievance. 
He  had  had  no  grievance  which  could  be  made 
clear  and  obvious.  The  abolitionists  had  an  un- 
doubted right  to  publish  their  own  opinions ;  they 
had  a  right  to  petition  Congress.  The  Southern 
"  fire-eater  "  had  been  impelled  to  violate  the  law 
in  many  ways  in  order  to  meet  effectively  the  law- 
ful acts  of  the  abolitionists.  This  was  irritating  to 
the  temper  and  wounding  to  the  pride,  and  gave 
rise  to  exasperated  expressions  indicating  a  will- 
ingness to  get  rid  of  the  whole  trouble  by  cutting 

158 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   LAW 

the  slave  section  free  from  the  annoying  bond. 
Now  the  tables  were  turned.  The  North  became 
the  seat  of  law-breaking  and  violence.  Many  of 
the  Northern  states  were  led  to  pass  personal  lib- 
erty laws,  the  plain  intent  of  which  was  to  render 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  ineffective  ;  and  at  the 
same  time  the  disposition  of  the  antislavery  man 
to  interfere  actively  with  the  relation  of  master  and 
slave  and  persuade  the  negroes  to  run  away  was 
greatly  stimulated.  All  this  bolstered  up  the  cause 
of  the  secessionist.  Indeed,  the  act  had  in  every 
respect  the  direct  effects  which  should  have  been 
anticipated.  It  tended  to  array  the  two  sections 
in  a  permanent  attitude  of  lawless  hostility  —  that 
is,  it  tended  to  destroy  the  Union. 

The  Compromise  was  known  to  the  public  as  a 
Whig  measure.  The  original  bill  was  introduced 
by  the  leader  of  the  Whig  party;  its  chief  support- 
ers were  Whigs  ;  and  it  was  signed  by  a  Whig 
President.  By  its  passage  the  burden  of  responsi- 
bility was  shifted  from  the  shoulders  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party  to  the  shoulders  of  the  Whig  party. 
Before  the  act  the  country  was  in  a  political  situ- 
ation created  by  the  Democrats.  In  the  teeth  of 
Whig  opposition  they  had  brought  the  country  and 
themselves  into  such  a  predicament  that  they  were 
themselves  threatening  to  dissolve  the  Union, 
rather  than  submit  to  it.  When  one  political  party 
comes  forward  and  relieves  its  opponents  from  the 
consequences  of  its  own  partisan  acts,  then  the  use 
of  parties  is  at  an  end.  It  is  of  the  essential 

'59 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

nature  of  a  party  that  it  shall  hold  the  opposite 
party  responsible  for  its  acts.  Failing  in  this,  the 
reason  for  its  existence  is  at  an  end.  But  the 
Whigs  now  virtually  said  to  the  Democrats :  "  You 
are  offended  with  yourselves  on  account  of  the  out- 
come of  your  Democratic  war  with  Mexico.  We, 
therefore,  will  generously  put  ourselves  into  a 
position  where  you  can  gratify  your  wounded  pride 
by  kicking  us."  Such  generosity  in  party  politics 
can  never  be  understood,  nor  can  the  party  found 
in  such  a  position  be  regarded  as  aught  but  worth- 
less rubbish  to  be  quickly  removed  out  of  the  way. 
When  the  national  Democratic  party  met  in 
nominating  convention  in  1852,  strong  resolutions 
were  passed  in  favor  of  standing  by  the  Compro- 
mise of  1850;  but,  not  satisfied  with  this,  they  sin- 
gled out  especially  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  and 
commended  it  as  a  sacred  obligation  to  be  observed 
with  faithfulness.  When  that  resolution  was  read 
the  entire  audience  broke  forth  into  uncontrollable 
applause.  After  roaring  themselves  hoarse  they 
demanded  that  the  resolution  be  read  again ;  and 
again  and  yet  again  there  was  an  exhibition  of  up- 
roarious glee.  What  was  there  about  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  fitted  to  produce  such  riotous  satisfac- 
tion ?  The  answer  is  plain  :  the  Whig  party  alone 
stood  in  the  way  of  the  Democrats'  controlling  the 
offices  of  the  government,  and  the  Whigs,  by  hav- 
ing committed  themselves  to  such  a  monstrous  act 
as  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  had  signed  their  own 
death  warrant.  The  Democrats  promptly  saw 

1 60 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   LAW 

their  advantage  and  determined  to  use  it.  They 
intended  to  hold  the  Whigs  to  the  full  measure  of 
their  responsibility  for  their  own  acts. 

To  the  national  Whig  Convention  of  the  same 
year  two  courses,  and  only  two,  were  open.  The 
party  must  stand  by  the  Compromise  or  it  must 
repudiate  the  Compromise,  and  either  alternative 
seemed  equally  disastrous  to  the  party.  A  de- 
cided majority  of  the  convention  favored  resolu- 
tions approving  the  Compromise.  And  as  the 
Democrats  had  selected  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act 
for  special  approval,  so  the  Whigs  likewise  named 
this  act  as  one  "to  be  received  and  acquiesced  in 
by  the  Whig  party."  But  there  was  nothing  in 
this  resolution  that  was  fitted  to  create  hilarity 
in  the  Whig  convention.  It  was  a  bitter  pill  which 
they  had  foolishly  prepared  for  themselves. 

At  the  time  of  the  election  in  1852  the  only  part 
of  the  compromise  measures  which  had  received 
any  public  attention  was  that  which  pertained  to 
the  recovery  of  fugitive  slaves.  As  between  the 
two  great  parties  on  this  one  question  of  supreme 
public  interest  there  was  no  issue.  The  Northern 
antislavery  Whigs  despised  the  Whig  party  for 
passing  such  a  law.  The  Southern  proslavery 
Whigs  were  aggrieved  because  the  law  was  treated 
with  contempt.  From  whatever  point  of  view,  the 
Whig  party  suffered.  The  result  was  that  the 
Democrats  carried  every  state  in  the  Union  except 
four,  and  the  great  Whig  party  was  no  more. 


161 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PARTY  SYSTEM 

WITH  the  passing  of  the  Whig  party  there  comes 
an  end  to  the  second  chapter  in  the  history  of  the 
American  party  system.  The  first  chapter  ended 
with  the  going  out  of  the  old  Federal  party.  When 
the  Federal  party  died  there  were  no  stirring  politi- 
cal issues  to  divide  the  people,  and  a  widespread 
impression  existed  that  party  government  was  a 
thing  of  the  past.  The  Whig  party  expired  while 
public  opinion  was  deeply  moved  upon  important 
questions,  and  no  era  of  good  feeling  ensued. 

There  can  be  no  rational  or  profoundly  educative 
discussion  of  the  party  system  without  raising  and, 
at  least  in  some  tentative  way,  settling  the  question 
whether  or  not  that  system  is  an  evil  in  itself  to  be 
gotten  rid  of  at  any  cost.  If  the  party  is  an  evil, 
then  every  failure  in  party  government  is  a  public 
blessing.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  party  is  a 
necessary  or  a  desirable  agency  in  the  movement 
toward  a  better  order,  then  failure  in  the  party  or 
anything  which  tends  to  bring  discredit  upon  the 
system  is  a  public  calamity. 

I  have  assumed  that  the  party  is  a  useful  agency 
in  the  development  of  democracy.  I  admit  that  a 

162 


THE   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

large  proportion  of  the  wisest  and  best  of  men 
have  ever  held  the  opposite  opinion.  Neverthe- 
less, I  believe  in  the  party  system  as  I  believe 
in  our  system  of  courts.  Any  student  of  history 
knows  that  the  judicial  system  has  been  from 
beginning  to  end  tainted  with  corruption  and  injus- 
tice. The  courts  themselves  have  often  been  made 
the  most  effective  bulwark  of  tyranny  and  rank 
injustice.  A  minute  philosopher  can  point  out 
detail  after  detail  in  the  most  perfect  judicial 
system  known  to  man,  which,  in  itself,  tends  to 
obscure  the  truth  and  to  make  the  attainment  of 
justice  impossible.  It  is  easy  to  criticise  the  judi- 
cial system ;  it  is  easy  to  show  that  it  has  real 
defects,  that  real  evils  are  wrought  by  its  agency. 
Yet,  on  the  whole,  throughout  the  thousands  of 
years  of  its  history,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
system  has  made  for  the  bringing  in  of  £  better 
order  ;  has  tended  to  restrain  tyranny  and  promote 
liberty,  to  avert  injustice  and  promote  justice;  so 
that  the  common  opinion  of  mankind  has  come 
more  and  more  to  support  the  judicial  system. 
With  all  its  faults  it  has  helped  rather  than 
hindered  human  progress. 

The  man  who  to-day  openly  attacks  the  judicial 
system  has  a  difficult  task.  He  encounters  thou- 
sands of  years  of  prejudice  and  superstition  in  its 
favor.  Thus  far  no  better  plan  for  settling  dis- 
putes and  composing  feuds  seems  to  have  been 
devised.  Every  attempt  to  carry  on  society  with- 
out courts  of  law  has  led  to  the  introduction  of  mob 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

violence  or  despotism ;  and  so  terrible  have  been 
the  further  consequences  that  a  superstitious  wor- 
ship of  the  judiciary  has  arisen  which  has  been 
one  of  the  most  serious  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the 
attainment  of  a  higher  degree  of  justice.  The 
very  faults  of  the  system  have  come  to  be  en- 
circled with  a  sanctity  which  resists  investigation 
and  correction. 

It  is  quite  otherwise  with  the  political  party. 
The  court  of  justice  is  old  and  venerable,  our 
party  system  is  new ;  yet  in  the  origin  of  the  two 
institutions  we  may  trace  a  striking  analogy.  Out 
of  a  conscious,  manifest  need  came  the  beginnings 
of  the  judiciary.  The  widely  prevalent  practice  of 
private  warfare  was  unsatisfactory,  and  it  was  felt 
that  there  might  at  least  be  introduced  the  prin- 
ciple of  appeal  from  Philip  drunk  to  Philip  sober. 
As  the  spirit  of  justice  began  to  gain  the  ascen- 
dency in  the  human  mind  and  reason  tended  to 
dominate  passion,  the  inclination  toward  displacing 
violence  by  an  appeal  to  wisdom  and  right  grew 
continually  stronger,  and  there  slowly  grew  up  a 
system  of  continuous  public  interference  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  unceasing  and  relentless  private  war. 
Our  modern  democratic  sympathies  impel  us  to 
wish  that  there  might  have  arisen  a  judiciary 
which,  while  satisfying  this  elemental  human  need, 
had  not  also  tended  to  strengthen  despotic  govern- 
ment. But  history  is  searched  in  vain  for  such  an 
instance.  The  judicial  system  was  in  its  origin 
made  everywhere  to  reenforce  despotism. 

164 


THE   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

As  the  judiciary  grew  out  of  private  warfare,  so 
the  political  party  has  grown  out  of  civil  strife. 
But  the  party  has  come  late  in  human  history. 
Through  thousands  of  years  of  civil  war  man  has 
toiled  and  suffered  without  any  manifest  tendency 
to  its  development ;  and  the  reason  has  been  that 
no  substitute  appeared  for  civil  war  except  despot- 
ism. Now,  so  long  as  the  people  believed  in  des- 
potic rule  or  have  quietly  submitted  to  it,  there  has 
been,  there  could  be,  no  suggestion  of  the  political 
party.  The  necessary  prerequisite  to  the  party 
is  that  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  citizens  of 
a  State  shall  come  to  look  upon  themselves  as  cor- 
porately  responsible  for  the  good  order  of  the  State. 
Wherever  this  condition  has  appeared  there  also 
have  appeared  tendencies  to  the  formation  of  po- 
litical parties.  Some  agency  must  be  found  for  the 
settling  of  political  disputes  besides  the  old  one  of 
fighting,  or  there  is  no  permanent  hope  for  democ- 
racy. Such  an  agency  is  the  party.  The  system 
is  not  perfect ;  it  bristles  with  imperfections.  No 
one  should  be  satisfied  with  it  if  something  better 
can  be  devised.  But  the  believer  in  democracy, 
pending  the  discovery  of  the  better  means,  is  bound 
to  make  the  best  and  most  effective  use  of  that 
which  is  at  hand  for  accomplishing  the  people's 
will. 

That  the  passing  of  the  Whigs  has  important 

and  unfortunate  relations  to  the  Civil  War  has  been 

indicated  in  a  preceding  chapter,  and  will  be  still 

further  illustrated   hereafter.     Almost  equally  ca- 

'65 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

iamitous  is  the  fact  that  the  death  of  the  old  party 
and  the  organization  of  a  new  one  tends  to  perpet- 
uate a  most  persistent  and  injurious  delusion  in 
American  politics.  That  is  the  notion  that  a  politi- 
cal party  is  something  which  may  be  organized 
out  of  hand,  by  anybody,  at  any  time.  After  a 
hundred  years  of  experience  and  after  scores  of 
conspicuous  failures,  this  delusion  is  as  rank  and 
mischievous  as  ever.  One  man,  or  a  small  group 
of  men  who  find  themselves  possessed  of  a  high 
moral  idea  will  say  among  themselves,  "  Go  to, 
now,  let  us  organize  and  be  a  political  party." 
When  confronted  with  the  difficulty  of  the  under- 
taking they  are  sure  to  appeal  to  the  history  of  the 
antislavery  agitation.  Did  not  the  few  and  de- 
spised abolitionists  force  upon  the  country  the 
organization  of  a  new  party  with  high  moral  prin- 
ciples ?  Just  enough  of  accuracy  pertains  to  this 
view  to  give  persistence  to  its  error.  It  is  true 
that  the  antislavery  party  had  some  influence  in 
the  formation  of  the  Republican  party.  It  is  also 
true  that  the  new  party  was  animated  by  a  high 
moral  purpose.  But  the  party  was  influential  in 
bringing  on  the  Civil  War.  Therefore  the  substi- 
tution of  the  new  party  for  the  old  should  be 
regarded  as  an  example  to  be  shunned  rather 
than  as  a  model  to  be  followed. 

The  American  party  system  will  not  have  had 
a  fair  trial  until  the  system  itself  is  understood, 
believed  in,  and  generally  accepted  and  adopted. 
That  is,  it  cannot  have  a  fair  trial  so  long  as  the 

166 


THE   AMERICAN    PARTY   SYSTEM 

system  itself  is  seriously  challenged.  The  system 
involves  the  maintenance  of  two  great  national 
organizations  with  local  organizations  sustained  in 
every  part  of  the  Union.  The  two  organizations 
include  all  the  voters.  Each  represents  the  entire 
nation.  An  American  political  party  cannot  rep- 
resent a  locality ;  it  cannot  represent  a  class, 
as  the  laboring  class  or  the  capitalist  class ;  it  can- 
not represent  any  special  interest  or  reform,  as 
the  interest  of  protection  or  the  temperance  reform. 
So  soon  as  a  political  party  comes  to  represent  a 
section  it  has  taken  the  first  step  in  a  course  which 
threatens  disruption.  So  soon  as  a  political  party  is 
understood  to  represent  a  particular  class  it  has 
begun  to  move  in  the  direction  of  diffused  civil  war. 
So  soon  as  a  party  is  understood  to  represent  one 
special  interest  it  becomes  an  organized  denial  of 
the  American  system  of  government.  If  an  Ameri- 
can party  advocates  a  protective  policy  it  must 
rest  such  advocacy  upon  the  advantages  to  the 
country  at  large  to  accrue  from  such  a  policy,  and 
not  upon  the  interests  of  a  class.  A  farmer's 
party  or  a  working-man's  party  must  rest  its  claim 
for  support,  not  upon  the  interests  of  a  class,  but 
upon  the  interests  of  all  classes. 

On  the  continent  of  Europe  the  so-called  group 
system  of  political  parties  prevails.  In  a  single 
legislative  assembly  there  may  be  a  dozen  political 
parties.  These  parties  do  represent  special  inter- 
ests or  special  localities  or  special  reforms.  No 
one  party  expects  to  control  a  majority  or  to  be 

167 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

clothed  with  the  responsibility  of  government. 
They  are  all  organizations  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
fluencing the  government  in  certain  particular 
lines.  They  are  not  political  parties  as  the  term 
is  used  in  America. 

If  the  American  party  cannot  represent  a  sec- 
tion, a  class  interest,  or  a  special  moral  issue,  what 
does  it  represent?  As  a  great  organic  national 
institution  it  represents  all  sections,  all  interests, 
and  all  issues.  The  two  great  parties  monopolize 
the  field  of  political  control  and  constitute  the 
only  effective  agencies  which  the  people  have  for 
making  nominations,  carrying  elections,  and  secur- 
ing the  ends  of  government.  The  parties  there- 
fore must  take  sides  upon  a  multitude  of  issues 
pertaining  to  a  great  variety  of  unrelated  subjects. 
So  long  as  the  Republican  party  was  dominated 
by  a  single  issue,  it  was  not  in  the  true  sense  a 
national  political  party.  During  the  Civil  War 
even  the  name  fell  out  of  use.  Lincoln  was  nomi- 
nated for  his  second  term  by  a  convention  of 
Unionists,  and  a  Southern  war  Democrat  was 
placed  upon  the  ticket  with  him.  And  after  the 
war,  so  long  as  the  party  was  maintained  in  the 
Southern  states  by  the  use  of  troops,  it  was  still 
not  a  normal  national  party.  An  organization 
upheld  by  bayonets  is  not  a  political  party.  Only 
very  slowly  and  gradually  during  the  last  quarter 
of  a  century  has  the  Republican  party  been  recov- 
ering from  the  abnormal  conditions  which  prevailed 
during  the  first  twenty  years  of  its  history.  In 

168 


THE   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

the  American  political  system  under  normal  condi- 
tions each  of  the  two  parties  becomes  traditionally 
associated  with  a  few  tendencies  which  are  the 
subject  of  political  controversy,  yet  each  must  be 
an  organ  for  expression  upon  a  great  variety  of 
public  questions. 

We  have  in  the  United  States  a  Civil  Service 
Reform  League.  It  is  an  organization  designed 
to  promote  a  special  reform.  It  has  never  pre- 
tended to  play  the  part  of  a  political  party,  but 
it  has  directed  all  its  energies  to  the  task  of  per- 
suading voters  in  the  two  national  organizations 
to  favor  the  reform  of  the  civil  service,  while 
it  has  also  sought  to  advance  the  interests  of 
candidates  in  both  parties  favorable  to  the  reform. 
Had  the  Reform  League  gone  into  the  field  as 
a  political  party,  nominating  candidates  and  at- 
tempting to  carry  elections,  it  would  have  played 
into  the  hands  of  the  more  corrupt  elements  in  the 
two  chief  parties. 

A  different  course  has  been  taken  during  recent 
years  by  a  class  of  highly  moral  persons  who 
believe  in  radical  temperance  legislation.  Instead 
of  seeking  to  secure  the  legislation  desired  by  an 
appeal  to  the  voters  in  the  two  parties,  a  few  of 
the  temperance  reformers  have  chosen  to  act 
the  part  of  a  political  party.  As  might  easily 
have  been  foreseen,  the  posing  as  a  party  tends 
to  belittle  their  cause  by  the  sorry  showing  of 
support  which  they  are  able  to  command.  The 
votes  which  they  control  can  never  truly  repre- 
169 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

sent  the  strength  of  the  cause.  Then  again, 
such  a  party  tends  directly  to  political  corrup- 
tion. It  is  sure  to  be  regarded  as  an  ally  of 
one  or  the  other  of  the  real  parties.  A  few  years 
ago  a  member  of  the  national  committee  of  one  of 
the  great  parties  published  over  his  own  name  the 
details  of  a  bargain  which  he  had  entered  into 
with  the  leader  of  one  of  the  minor  parties,  promis- 
ing to  pay  a  considerable  sum  of  money  on  condi- 
tion that  his  party  campaign  should  be  confined 
to  a  given  locality.  The  situation  was  such  that 
the  third  party  would  draw  votes  from  the  great 
party  whose  interests  the  committee  member  wished 
to  serve.  If,  for  a  cash  consideration,  the  leader 
of  that  minor  party  could  be  induced  to  confine 
his  labors  to  those  states  in  which  there  was  a 
perfectly  safe  majority  for  the  other  party,  the 
money  would  be,  in  the  judgment  of  this  practical 
politician,  money  well  spent.  In  this  case  the 
other  members  of  the  national  committee  refused 
to  ratify  the  bargain.  Immediately  the  third  party 
leader  moved  into  the  state  where  his  campaign 
would  be  most  injurious  to  the  prospects  of  the 
party  which  had  rejected  his  terms,  and  the  charge 
was  publicly  made  that  he  had  sold  out  to  the  other 
one  of  the  leading  parties.  Whether  this  partic- 
ular charge  was  true  or  false,  the  circumstance 
illustrates  a  real  temptation  which  is  created  wher- 
ever a  few  thousand  voters  become  detached  from 
the  regular  parties  and  are  placed  in  a  condition 
to  be  manipulated  and  thrown  from  one  party  to 
170 


THE   AMERICAN   PARTY  SYSTEM 

the  other.  In  the  Northern  states  a  Prohibition 
vote  is  usually  counted  as  a  vote  drawn  from  the 
Republican  party,  while  the  Populists  draw  chiefly 
from  the  Democrats.  It  is  to  the  interest  of  the 
Democrats,  therefore,  to  turn  the  most  effective 
temperance  campaign  into  those  localities  where 
the  Republicans  are  most  susceptible  to  injury,  and 
the  Republicans  are  interested  in  strengthening 
and  manipulating  the  "middle-of-the-road"  Popu- 
lists so  as  to  injure  the  Democrats.  In  either  case 
the  relation  is  insincere  and  tends  to  corruption. 

In  1896  the  "Gold  Democrats"  put  in  nomina- 
tion candidates  for  the  presidency  and  vice-presi- 
dency with  the  avowed  intention  of  defeating  the 
regular  Democratic  nominee.  There  was  no  pre- 
tence of  organizing  a  new  party.  On  the  contrary, 
the  contention  was  that  one  of  the  old,  tried  parties 
was  wandering  from  the  right  way,  and,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  Indianapolis 
convention,  it  was  better  for  the  party  and  better 
for  the  country  that  their  party  should  be  defeated. 
In  such  a  movement  there  is  nothing  confusing 
and  nothing  which  tends  to  corruption.  It  was 
an  open  and  undisguised  effort  to  accomplish  a 
definite  political  end.  There  might  arise  a  special 
emergency  in  which  the  Civil  Service  League  would 
name  a  candidate  of  its  own  to  defeat  an  obnoxious 
candidate  or  to  cause  one  of  the  parties  to  change 
its  policy.  Such  conduct  is  not  to  be  confused 
with  the  organization  of  a  third  party.  The  third 
party  aims  at  the  destruction  of  one  or  the  other 
171 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

of  the  established  parties,  and  the  elevation  of 
itself  to  a  dominant  position.  It  will  be  profitable 
to  study  the  history  of  some  of  those  movements 
which  have  arisen  from  time  to  time  to  embarrass 
American  politics. 

The  Liberty  party  was  formed  in  1839  to  pro- 
mote the  abolition  of  slavery  by  political  methods. 
Before  the  campaign  of  1844  its  managers  seem 
to  have  become  convinced  that  as  the  organ  of  a 
single  cause  it  could  not  gain  control  of  the  forces 
which  command  political  success.  The  platform 
adopted  in  1844  therefore  proclaimed,  in  its  third 
resolution,  that  no  existing  party  represented 
"the  true  principles  of  American  liberty."  In 
the  fourth  resolution  it  declared  flatly  that  the 
Liberty  party  was  not  organized  for  the  single 
purpose  of  the  overthrow  of  slavery,  but  that  it 
was  devoted  to  every  just  measure  for  social  free- 
dom. The  fifth  resolution  reads:  "The  Liberty 
party  is  not  a  sectional  party,  but  a  national  party ; 
was  not  originated  in  a  desire  to  accomplish  a 
single  object,  but  in  a  comprehensive  regard  to 
the  great  interests  of  the  whole  country ;  is  not  a 
new  party,  but  is  the  party  of  1776,  reviving  the 
principles  of  that  memorable  era,  and  striving  to 
carry  them  into  practical  application." 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  this  specious  and  high- 
sounding  claim,  the  fact  remained  that  the  Lib- 
erty party  was  a  little  group  of  men  drawn 
together  by  similar  opinions  in  respect  to  a  single 
subject  of  national  import.  The  platform  of  1844 
172 


THE   AMERICAN   PARTY  SYSTEM 

(was  a  pretence.  The  antislavery  group  had  no 
great  scheme  of  national  policy  to  offer.  In 
the  election  they  secured  votes  enough  to  turn  the 
scale  in  favor  of  the  proslavery  policy  for  the 
acquisition  of  Texas.  The  Whigs  opposed  annex- 
ation, while  the  Democrats  favored  it.  The  new 
and  untried  third  party  was  used  as  a  makeweight 
in  a  Democratic  campaign,  and  secured  victory  for 
the  policy  which  it  professed  especially  to  oppose. 
This  was  by  no  means  all  of  the  mischief  accom- 
plished. Confusion  was  introduced  into  party 
issues.  The  members  of  the  new  party  were 
naturally  looked  upon  by  the  antislavery  Whigs 
as  either  wanting  in  sincerity  or  lacking  in  intelli- 
gence. Their  action  brought  division  and  animos- 
ity into  the  ranks  of  the  antislavery  forces  and 
tended  to  belittle  the  cause.  While  in  the  doubt- 
ful states  the  party  could  and  did  cast  enough 
votes  to  affect  the  result  of  a  closely  contested 
election,  yet  it  cast  only  a  small  fraction  of  the 
real  antislavery  vote.  Its  course  tended  in  every 
way  to  bring  the  cause  into  contempt.  Even 
among  the  professed  abolitionists  a  considerable 
number  refused  to  support  the  movement. 

The  career  of  the  Liberty  party  was  brief. 
In  1848  this  new  "  party  of  1776  "  was  the  first  to 
appear  in  the  field  with  its  candidates.  Yet  before 
the  end  of  the  campaign  it  had  decided  to  vote 
itself  out  of  existence  and  to  unite  with  another 
new  party  organized  under  a  new  name  and  com- 
posed of  a  variety  of  discordant  elements.  Only  a 
173 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

mere  ghost  of  the  Liberty  party  survived  the  one 
election  in  which  it  played  a  noteworthy  but  bale- 
ful part. 

A  similar  experience  awaited  the  Free-soil  party 
which  absorbed  the  greater  part  of  the  Liberty 
party.  A  few  disaffected  Whigs  who  were  dis- 
pleased with  General  Taylor's  candidacy  were 
ready  to  join  the  new  party,  but  its  most  impor- 
tant element  was  made  up  of  a  faction  in  the 
Democratic  party.  The  Barnburners,  a  group  of 
New  York  Democrats  led  by  Martin  Van  Buren, 
had  been  ill  treated  in  the  National  Democratic 
Convention  of  1844,  insomuch  that  they  withdrew 
from  the  convention.  Again  they  were  aggrieved 
at  the  action  of  the  National  Convention  of  1848. 
The  experience  of  the  Liberty  party  of  1844  had 
shown  how  easy  it  was  to  determine  the  outcome 
of  a  close  election  by  the-use  of  a  so-called  third 
party.  The  Barnburners  wished  especially  to  defeat 
the  regular  nominee  of  the  Democratic  party.  To 
do  this  they  determined  to  bring  out  an  independent 
candidate,  so  as  to  divide  the  New  York  vote  and 
thus  turn  the  state  to  the  Whigs.  Martin  Van 
Buren  consented  to  be  the  candidate  of  the  disaf- 
fected faction.  Many  of  the  Barnburners  were 
ardent  supporters  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso.  This 
fact  attracted  antislavery  sympathizers  and  in- 
duced them  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  the  Demo- 
cratic "  bolters  "  and  to  accept  Van  Buren  as  the 
candidate  of  all  who  united  under  the  new  name, 
the  Free-soil  party,  or  the  Free  Democracy. 


THE   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

Many  of  the  antislavery  people  were,  however, 
utterly  disgusted  with  the  whole  proceeding. 
President  Van  Buren,  they  knew,  had  played  into 
the  hands  of  the  slave  power  during  his  adminis- 
tration, and  they  felt  that  they,  as  a  political  ele- 
ment, were  being  corruptly  used  to  gratify  personal 
spite  by  those  who  had  no  sympathy  with  their 
main  purpose.  Certain  it  is  that  the  Free-soil 
campaign  was  so  managed  as  to  enable  the  Barn- 
burners to  administer  punishment  to  their  enemies 
in  their  own  party.  After  this  was  accomplished 
Martin  Van  Buren  and  nearly  all  of  the  disaffected 
Democrats  who  had  acted  with  him  were  reab- 
sorbed  into  the  Democratic  party,  so  that  in  1852 
the  Free-soil  vote  was  comparatively  light. 

One  episode  serves  still  further  to  illustrate  the 
sinister  tendencies  of  third  party  politics.  The 
Free-soilers  succeeded,  in  1848,  in  electing  a  few 
members  to  the  House  of  Representatives  in  Con- 
gress, where  the  balance  between  the  two  parties 
was  so  nearly  even  that  they  were  able  to  control 
the  election  of  the  Speaker.  The  Whigs,  as  repre- 
senting a  larger  antislavery  element,  would  natu- 
rally expect  to  be  favored  in  such  a  contest.  But 
the  unexpected  happened,  and  the  speakership 
went  to  an  extreme  proslavery  Democrat. 

If  anything  were  wanting  to  throw  discredit  upon 
the  principles  involved  in  third  party  politics,  it  may 
be  found  in  the  history  of  two  other  third  parties 
not  remotely  connected  with  our  political  develop- 
ment. I  refer  to  the  Anti-mason  and  the  Know- 

175 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

nothing  parties.  The  Anti-masons  sprang  up  in 
1827.  The  movement  arose  from  a  popular  excite- 
ment incident  to  the  disappearance  of  William 
Morgan,  who  had  threatened  to  expose  the  secrets 
of  the  Masonic  Order.  It  represented  a  crusade 
against  secret  societies  in  general  and  the  Free- 
masons in  particular.  At  this  time  party  organi- 
zation was  in  abeyance.  The  party  of  Jefferson 
was  threatened  with  decay  for  lack  of  organized 
opposition.  Before  the  National  Republic  party 
took  organic  form,  the  Anti-masons  were  in  the 
field  as  a  fully  developed  political  party  and  carried 
elections  in  several  states.  It  was  the  first  political 
party  to  call  a  national  nominating  convention. 
As  the  Whig  party  became  fully  organized  the 
Anti-masons  disappeared,  except  as  a  ghost  of  the 
old  party  survived  and  is  still  perpetuated  by  a 
few  zealots  who  bring  out  a  candidate  every 
four  years.  Many  of  the  members  were  absorbed 
into  the  Whig  party. 

This  movement  illustrates  two  things  of  special 
interest  in  party  history.  The  first,  which  the 
career  of  the  antislavery  parties  also  exemplifies, 
is  the  futility  of  an  attempt  to  maintain  a  party 
in  America  in  the  interest  of  a  single  issue.  The 
second  is  an  inveterate  tendency  of  the  American 
people  to  organize  political  parties  whenever  any 
group  or  class  becomes  stirred  over  any  question 
of  any  sort  whatever.  If  at  the  time  of  the  dis- 
appearance of  Morgan  there  had  been  in  the  field 
two  strong  political  parties  in  good  working  order, 


THE   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

either  there  would  never  have  been  an  Anti-mason 
party,  or,  if  it  had  been  born,  it  would  have  had 
from  the  beginning  a  mere  shadowy  existence 
and  an  inappreciable  influence.  The  Anti-masons 
became  formidable  and  even  carried  elections, 
because  there  was  just  at  that  time  a  great  abun- 
dance of  unused  political  raw  material.  There 
was  never  anything  in  the  movement  to  give  per- 
manence to  a  national  party.  When  the  Whig 
party  laid  hold  of  the  unused  party  material  the 
adventitious  party  collapsed. 

The  only  rational  basis  for  the  Anti-mason  party 
was  found  in  the  objection  to  the  use  of  a  secret 
society  to  influence  politics.  But  the  Know-noth- 
ing party,  which  sprang  up  upon  the  decline  of 
the  Whig  party,  was  itself  an  oath-bound  secret 
society.  It  was  composed  of  the  same  sort  of  per- 
sons and,  to  a  large  extent,  of  the  same  individuals 
who  had  been  engaged  in  the  anti-secret-society 
movement.  In  spite  of  the  logical  contradiction  in 
the  two  movements,  there  was,  after  all,  a  striking 
similarity  between  them.  Each  was  preeminently 
sentimental  and  appealed  to  a  peculiarly  sentimen- 
tal class.  There  are  those  who  can  never  be  in- 
duced to  work  in  dead  earnest  for  any  cause  unless 
they  can  be  confronted  by  some  bogie  which  in 
their  view  threatens  immediate  and  dire  destruc- 
tion to  all  that  the  world  holds  dear..  In  the  case 
of  one  of  the  third  parties  under  discussion  the 
bogie  was  secret  societies.  In  the  case  of  the  other 
it  was  the  Catholic  Church. 
N  177 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

The  most  disgraceful  chapter  in  the  history  of 
Christendom  is  found  in  the  wars  and  persecutions 
between  Protestants  and  Catholics,  and  the  effects 
of  the  centuries  of  diabolism  survive  in  the  deep- 
rooted  prejudice  which  may  be  stirred  up  and  util- 
ized for  political  purposes  wherever  men  are  found 
foolish  enough  or  base  enough  to  do  it.  Between 
Orangeman  and  Catholic  in  Ireland  this  anti-Chris- 
tian hatred  long  ago  became  organic  and  hereditary. 
As  incident  to  the  famine  in  Ireland,  in  1846, 
large  numbers  of  the  Irish  people  emigrated  to 
America.  The  immigrants  belonged  chiefly  to  the 
Catholic  faction  in  Ireland,  but  Orangemen  came 
also  and  the  spirit  of  the  Orangeman  came  with 
them,  so  that  there  arose  in  America  a  real  and 
intense  dread  of  Catholic  domination.  For  several 
years  preceding  the  collapse  of  the  Whig  party 
in  1852  there  had  been  a  growing  organized  oppo- 
sition to  the  influence  of  foreigners  in  American 
politics.  The  ignorant  foreign  vote  undoubtedly, 
as  was  asserted,  did  somewhat  to  facilitate  corrup- 
tion in  city  governments,  and  as  a  rule  the  Demo- 
crats were  the  gainers  by  the  foreign  vote.  The 
name  Democrat  had  a  manifest  attractive  power, 
as  it  still  has  for  large  classes  of  our  European  im- 
migrants, while  in  the  name  of  the  Whig  party 
there  was  no  such  appeal.  The  Whigs  were  not 
slow  to  discover  this,  and  it  constituted  one  reason 
for  the  dissatisfaction  with  the  name. 

Had  the  two  regular  parties  held  the  field  with 
normal  vigor,  this  anti-foreign  movement  would 

178 


THE   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

have  kept  within  bounds.  If  the  Democrats  had 
continued  to  attract  a  larger  proportion  of  the 
immigrant  Irish,  the  Whigs  would  have  found 
means  to  win  the  support  of  Germans  and  Hun- 
garians. In  any  event  religious  fanaticism  would 
have  been  restrained.  But  the  experience  of  the  Lib- 
erty party  and  the  Free-soil  party  was  teaching  the 
unhappy  lesson  that  it  was  easy,  by  appeals  to  the 
excitable  and  the  unreasoning,  to  gather  a  compara- 
tively small  vote  which  could  nevertheless  be  made, 
by  secret  manipulation,  to  hold  the  balance  of 
power  in  an  election.  Even  before  the  antislav- 
ery  parties  had  become  defunct,  secret  societies 
organized  to  antagonize  the  political  influence  of 
foreigners  were  applying  these  hidden  means  of 
political  control  with  growing  success ;  and  when 
the  Free-soil  party  declined  after  its  one  campaign 
of  1848,  the  Secret  American  or  Know-nothing 
party  rapidly  extended  the  area  of  its  organization 
and  influence.  Its  methods  were  astonishingly 
effective.  There  was  no  public  speaking ;  there 
were  no  processions,  none  of  the  usual  campaign 
efforts  to  attract  public  attention.  At  first  there 
were  no  public  nominations.  Yet  many  sensa- 
tional surprises  were  perpetrated  in  local  elections, 
and  before  the  Whigs  had  vanished  from  the  po- 
litical stage  that  strange,  oath-bound,  un-American 
American  party  had  ramified  throughout  the  whole 
country.  In  the  year  1853  there  were  peculiar 
conditions  which  may  be  said  to  have  placed  half 
the  people,  North  and  South,  in  a  state  of  political 
179 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

orphanage.  Then  it  was  that  the  Know-nothing 
party  rose  to  national  proportions  and  threatened 
to  take  the  place  left  vacant  by  the  Whigs.  At 
a  council  held  in  Cincinnati  a  decision  was  reached 
that  the  new  party  would  take  no  position  for  or 
against  slavery  or  any  subject  growing  out  of  slav- 
ery. It  would  favor  the  Union  and  support  the 
policy  of  "  America  for  the  Americans."  In  the 
North  the  career  of  the  party  was  cut  short  by 
the  introduction  of  the  debate  over  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill  in  1854;  but  in  the  South  it  played 
a  considerable  part  in  local  politics  for  several  years. 

Everything  which  the  American  party  stood  for 
and  represented  was  contrary  to  the  fundamental 
principles  of  our  American  institutions.  A  secret 
society  cannot  fill  the  place  of  a  political  party  in 
a  true  republic.  The  religious  prejudice  to  which 
it  appealed  belonged  to  the  Dark  Ages. 

Like  all  third  parties,  the  American  party  had 
a  bewildering  and  confusing  effect.  It  had  much 
influence  in  the  formation  of  parties  on  sectional 
lines.  When  the  Southern  Unionists  joined  the 
Americans  they  believed  that  they  were  uniting 
with  a  national  institution  to  save  the  Union.  A 
few  months  later  they  found  themselves  united 
instead  to  a  sectional  secret  society,  which,  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  needs  of  their  own  section, 
was  absolutely  without  rational  basis.  The  South 
was  never  troubled  with  foreigners,  and  there  was 
no  reason  why  they  should  grow  frantic  over  the 
fear  of  Catholic  domination.  Writing  for  the  New 

1 80 


THE   AMERICAN   PARTY   SYSTEM 

York  Independent  for  January  18,  1855,  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  said :  "  We  are  making  straight 
upon  disunion  as  ever  a  people  did,  and  blind- 
folded." He  was  referring  to  the  facility  with 
which  the  Northern  conscience  had  been  stifled  by 
the  perfidy  of  a  so-called  American  party.  Thou- 
sands, he  said,  had  been  inveigled  into  "  these  cata- 
combs of  freedom "  under  the  delusion  that  the 
lodge  would  champion  freedom.  Nine-tenths  of 
the  people  North  and  South  truly  wished  to  save 
the  Union ;  but  they  lost  their  grip  upon  the  agen- 
cies which  might  have  been  effective  to  that  end 
without  resort  to  civil  war.  At  the  door  of  the 
falsely  named  American  party  must  lie  the  charge 
of  helping  to  confuse  the  voters  and  strengthen 
the  forces  of  disruption. 

Americans  are  limited  to  the  use  of  two  parties, 
and  only  two,  chiefly  because  of  the  fact  that  the 
enduring  party  has  and  must  have  a  vast  and  com- 
plex organization.  It  is  at  the  same  time  both 
national  and  local.  Party  officers  attend  con- 
tinually to  necessary  or  important  public  duties. 
Nominations  must  be  made  and  elections  held,  and 
it  is  desirable  that  public  questions  should  be  stated 
and  debated.  The  political  parties  through  their 
officials  attend  to  these  duties.  In  order  that  one 
party  should  be  maintained  in  efficient  working 
order  it  must  be  confronted  by  another  of  like 
organization  and  efficiency.  When  the  two  organ- 
izations have  preempted  the  field  there  is  no  room 
for  a  third.  If  our  experience  of  a  hundred  years 
181 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

proves  anything  it  proves  that  the  attempt  to  create 
and  maintain  a  third  political  party  is  a  culpable 
waste  of  political  energy. 

But  nearly  all  those  who  have  been  connected 
with  minor  political  parties  are  men  of  high  aver- 
age intelligence ;  they  represent  political  convic- 
tions worthy  to  be  spoken  and  to  be  heard,  — 
convictions,  often,  which  should  be  embodied  in 
actual  public  policy.  What  then  is  the  holder 
of  valuable  but  unaccepted  political  principles  or 
theories  to  do  ?  In  the  first  place  he  should  recog- 
nize the  stern,  hard  fact  that  thus  far  American 
political  genius  has  invented  only  one  clearly 
defined  agency  for  translating  political  conviction 
into  public  policy,  a  peculiar  bi-party  system.  He 
should  then  unite  with  others  of  like  persuasion  in 
seeking  to  impress  his  views  upon  one  or  the  other 
of  the  established  political  parties.  Possibly  under 
certain  political  emergencies,  the  believers  in  a 
given  policy  may  wisely  organize  and  place  candi- 
dates in  the  field  in  opposition  to  the  regular  can- 
didates. This  depends  upon  local  or  temporary 
conditions.  But  even  in  all  such  cases  our  experi- 
ence seems  to  prove  that  it  were  better  for  the 
promoters  of  the  special  policy  to  disavow  openly 
any  intention  of  being  or  becoming  a  great  national 
party.  I  admit,  however,  the  theoretic  possibility 
that  the  two  regular  parties  may  become  so  con- 
fused in  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to  the 
voters  that  the  line  of  least  resistance  may  be  in 
the  direction  of  a  radical  reorganization  of  parties. 

182 


CHAPTER   XIII 

THE   RISE  OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY 

THE  Republican  party  arose  out  of  the  concur- 
rence of  circumstances,  conditions,  and  events  of 
great  political  significance  which  are  themselves 
the  outcome  of  our  antecedent  national  history. 
Some  of  these  have  been  dwelt  upon  in  preceding 
chapters,  while  others  are  yet  to  be  considered. 

It  was  universally  recognized  after  the  election 
of  1852  that  the  end  of  the  Whig  party  was 
assured  ;  but  a  full  year  intervened  before  anything 
occurred  to  demonstrate  the  necessity  for  a  new 
party  to  confront  the  Democrats  upon  national 
issues.  In  the  meantime,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
American  party  was  spreading  into  every  part  of 
the  country ;  but  it  was  not  yet  prepared  to  con- 
test the  field  in  a  national  election,  and  the  Demo- 
cratic party  was  left  without  effective  opposition. 
It  was  plain  that  any  man  who  should  succeed  in 
winning  the  Democratic  nomination  in  1856  would 
without  doubt  become  President  of  the  United 
States.  The  situation  made  it  practically  certain, 
also,  that  the  candidate  would  be  a  Northern  man, 
since  the  only  real  obstacle  to  the  triumph  of  the 
party  was  to  be  found  in  the  Northern  states. 

183 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

It  had  come  to  be  understood  that  the  Demo- 
cratic policy  should  be  dictated  by  the  South,  or 
should  at  least  not  be  offensive  to  that  section. 
The  party  candidates  in  1848  and  in  1852  had 
been  Northern  men,  but  each  had  made  haste  to 
give  assurance  that  his  administrative  principles 
would  be  such  as  the  Southern  wing  of  the  party 
would  approve.  Lewis  Cass  of  Michigan,  who 
was  the  unsuccessful  candidate  of  1848,  was  one 
of  the  original  supporters  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso ; 
but  when  confronted  with  the  possibility  of  occupy- 
ing the  presidential  chair  himself,  he  professed  to 
have  seen  new  light  upon  the  question  treated  in 
that  document.  A  discovery  that  the  federal 
government  ought  not,  after  all,  to  interfere  with 
slavery  in  the  territories  enabled  him  to  escape 
from  his  earlier  position  which  was  unacceptable 
to  the  Southern  Democrats.  Franklin  Pierce  pro- 
claimed his  stanch  adherence  to  the  Compromise 
of  1850,  by  which  slavery  was  made  legal  north  of 
the  line  drawn  by  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and 
assured  the  country  of  continued  peace  and  tran- 
quility  under  this  final  settlement  of  the  great 
controversy. 

The  principle  of  federal  non-interference  with 
slavery  in  the  territories  was  recognized  in 
that  part  of  the  Compromise  of  1850  which  pro- 
vided for  the  territorial  government  of  Utah  and 
New  Mexico.  The  question  of  slavery  was 
thereby  left  to  be  decided  by  the  people  of  those 
territories.  This,  by  rendering  it  possible  for 

184 


THE   RISE   OF   THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY 

slavery  to  exist  within  the  territory  north  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  line,  tended  to  throw  a 
doubt  upon  the  validity  of  the  earlier  act. 

Under  the  circumstances  it  was  not  strange  that 
shrewd  politicians  with  presidential  ambitions 
should  conceive  the  idea  of  still  further  gratifying 
the  South  by  applying  the  new  principle  to  the 
territory  immediately  adjoining  Missouri  on  the 
west.  Cass  and  Douglas,  aspirants  for  the  Demo- 
cratic nomination  in  1856,  were  both  preparing  for 
that  master  stroke.  Douglas,  driven,  it  is  inti- 
mated, by  a  lively  fear  that  his  rival  might  get  the 
start  of  him  in  announcing  that  strategic  advance, 
and  taking  advantage  of  his  position  as  chairman 
of  the  Congressional  Committee  on  Territories, 
hastened  to  introduce  a  bill  which  would  throw 
the  territory  west  of  Missouri  open  to  slavery. 
An  act  giving  a  territorial  organization  to  Ne- 
braska, which  then  included  what  remained  unor- 
ganized of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  —  a  vast  tract 
stretching  from  the  Indian  Territory  to  British 
America  —  had  passed  the  House  in  the  previous 
session,  but,  being. naturally  objectionable  to  the 
proslavery  politicians  who  still  respected  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  was  defeated  by  them  in 
the  Senate.  That  £ill  Douglas  brought  forward 
January  4,  1854,  with  amendments  which  incor- 
porated a  far-reaching  discovery  of  the  brilliant 
senator.  The  action  of  Congress  in  admitting  the 
territories  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico  to  organ- 
ization by  which  the  people  themselves  were  em- 


POLITICAL    PARTIES 

powered  to  legalize  or  prohibit  slavery  as  they 
chose,  Douglas  now  declared  to  be  the  adoption  of 
a  principle  universal  in  its  application  to  all  the 
territories  of  the  United  States.  "  Henceforth," 
he  said,  "  all  questions  pertaining  to  slavery  in  the 
territories  and  in  the  new  states  to  be  formed  there- 
from are  to  be  left  to  the  people  residing  therein." 

Now,  indeed,  if  never  before,  did  the  country 
sorely  need  a  truly  national  party  to  confront  the 
Democrats  and  expose  their  duplicity.  Glancing 
back  over  our  political  history  we  see  how  things 
might  have  been  and  ought  to  have  been  at  this 
exigency.  The  Whigs  had  carried  the  election  in 
1848  by  putting  at  the  head  of  their  ticket  a 
Southern  man  with  Northern  principles.  General 
Taylor,  as  a  Southern  slaveholder,  was  naturally 
regarded  with  more  or  less  suspicion  by  the  great 
body  of  his  Northern  supporters  ;  and,  as  an  honest, 
patriotic  man,  he  took  especial  pains  to  consider 
the  views  and  wishes  of  the  Northern  Whigs.  In 
like  manner  Martin  Van  Buren  and  Franklin 
Pierce,  as  Northern  men  with  Southern  principles, 
had  conducted  their  administrations  with  peculiar 
tenderness  toward  their  Southern  supporters,  and 
James  Buchanan  was  to  follow  in  their  footsteps. 

Had  the  Whigs  held  their  rational  position  as  a 
responsible  party  under  the  leadership  of  Taylor 
and  Seward,  this  principle  would  have  been  work- 
ing as  effectively  in  the  Whig  party  as  in  the 
Democratic  party.  Southern  Whigs  would  like- 
wise have  been  ambitious  for  presidential  honors. 
186 


THE   RISE   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY 

For  the  sake  of  the  Union  which  they  dearly  loved 
and  in  pursuance  of  a  moderate  and  conservative 
policy  to  which  they  were  disposed  by  nature,  they 
would  have  opposed  the  setting  aside  of  the. old 
Compromise  of  thirty-five  years'  standing.  Em- 
phasizing the  importance  of  the  Union  and  a 
conservative  opposition  to  violent  and  irrational 
agitation,  it  would  have  been  as  easy  for  Whigs  to 
continue  to  find  Southern  men  jwith  Northern 
principles  as  it  was  for  the  Democrats^to  find  New 
England  Puritans  with  Southern  principles.  With 
two  national  parties  thus  related  to  each  other, 
any  serious  threat  of  civil  war  or  any  real  danger 
of  disruption  of  the  Union  would  have  been  out  of 
the  question.  But  after  the  debate  over  Douglas's 
bill,  after  the  organization  of  the  new  party  of  the 
North,  the  Southern  Whigs,  spurned  and  despised 
by  their  former  allies,  were  left  absolutely  without 
standing  in  national  politics.  In  order  to  maintain 
a  party  existence  in  local  government,  they  entered 
into  a  competition  with  the  Democrats  in  vilifying 
the  North  and  in  appealing  in  louder  than  Demo- 
cratic tones  to  local  and  peculiarly  Southern 
prejudice.  So  far  as  the  party  system  was  con- 
cerned the  die  was  cast.  Only  one  national  party 
remained.  All  other  political  forces  were  turned 
into  agencies  for  fomenting  and  aggravating  sec- 
tional misunderstanding  and  hatred.  That  which 
Washington  foresaw  as  threatening  the  integrity 
of  the  Republic  had  come  to  pass  ;  political  parties 
were  formed  on  sectional  lines. 
187 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

The  debate  over  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill 
revealed  the  full  measure  of  the  folly  and  iniquity 
of  the  Compromise  of  1850.  The  latter  principle 
seemed  to  dominate  when  the  radical  Southern 
planters  framed  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act  for  the 
express  purpose  of  insulting  Northern  pride  and 
stimulating  Northern  lawlessness.  And  it  was 
folly  of  the  sort  for  which  there  is  no  forgive- 
ness for  the  Whig  party  to  vacate  its  command- 
ing position  and  bind  itself  over  hand  and  foot  to 
its  political  enemies. 

It  is  easy  to  show  that  the  Whig  compromisers 
of  1850  had  no  intention  of  repealing  the  Missouri 
Compromise ;  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that  they 
did  intend  to  soothe  the  wounded  Southern  pride 
by  a  law  making  it  legally  possible  to  carry  slavery 
into  certain  mountain  regions  where  it  was  morally 
certain  no  slave  would  ever  go.  The  people  of 
New  Mexico  had  already  adopted  a  constitution 
prohibiting  slavery.  To  say,  therefore,  in  the 
statute,  that  New  Mexico  might  be  admitted  into 
the  Union  with  or  without  slavery  according  as  the 
people  of  the  territory  should  determine,  was  ap- 
parently of  no  practical  consequence  save  as  a 
salve  to  the  sore  Southern  disappointment  in  the 
outcome  of  the  Mexican  War.  In  the  same  spirit 
Douglas  formulated  his  fateful  Nebraska  Bill. 
Probably  he  had  at  first  no  more  intention  of  actu- 
ally enlarging  the  area  of  slavery  than  had  Webster 
in  laboring  to  remove  the  legal  restriction  from 
the  territory  of  Utah.  Northern  free  labor  was 

188 


THE   RISE   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN    PARTY 

moving  westward,  as  he  knew,  by  leaps  and  bounds. 
It  was  not  at  all  likely  that  slavery  would  ever  gain 
any  foothold  in  the  region  between  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  the  states  of  Minnesota,  Iowa,  and 
Missouri.  Douglas,  no  doubt,  sought  to  further 
his  presidential  prospects  without  making  any 
actual  change  in  the  practical  situation  respecting 
slavery  extension.  His  principle  of  popular  sov- 
ereignty was  a  taking  one,  and  the  universal  ap- 
plication of  the  theory  of  non-interference  with 
slavery  in  the  territories  gave  to  the  Compromise 
of  1850  an  air  of  completeness  and  finality.  It 
seemed  to  relieve  Congress  from  a  burdensome 
care  and  'to  establish,  as  its  author  claimed,  the 
just  and  logical  principle  of  true  democracy,  by 
leaving  to  the  inhabitants  of  each  territory  the  free 
choice  of  their  own  institutions. 

But  Douglas  as  a  candidate  for  the  presidency 
soon  found  his  path  beset  with  unexpected  diffi- 
culties. The  sincerity  of  his  motives  was  called 
in  question.  The  South  was  insulted  by  the  pre- 
tence of  legalizing  slavery  in  territory  already,  by 
the  Missouri  Compromise,  preempted  for  freedom. 
The  bill  originally  said  nothing  about  this  Com- 
promise, only  providing  that  whenever  Nebraska 
should  be  admitted  as  a  state,  or  states,  the  con- 
stitutions then  adopted  should  determine  the  status 
as  to  slavery.  This  was  declared  to  be  mere  chi- 
canery and  humbug.  So  long  as  the  Missouri 
Compromise  remained  the  law  of  the  land,  slavery 
could  have  no  legal  recognition  in  Nebraska  while 
189 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

it  was  yet  a  territory ;  free  labor  only  could  exist 
there.  But  by  the  Douglas  bill  the  South  was  to 
be  cajoled  with  the  empty  notion  that,  at  the  in- 
stant of  entering  upon  the  sovereign  act  of  form- 
ing a  constitution  for  a  proposed  state,  the  free 
men  of  the  territory  might  invite  the  competition 
of  slavery. 

To  meet  this  dilemma  Douglas  undertook  to 
assume  that  the  earlier  law  was  superseded  by 
the  act  of  1850.  Thus  he  hoped  to  legalize  the 
immediate  introduction  of  slavery  into  Nebraska 
and  so  placate  the  South,  while  at  the  same  time 
escaping  the  odium  of  an  express  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  But  from  this  refuge  the 
wily  but  unfortunate  statesman  was  shut  out  by 
an  amendment  to  his  bill,  introduced  by  Senator 
Dixon  of  Kentucky,  explicitly  repealing  the  earlier 
Compromise.  This  amendment  Douglas  was  prac- 
tically forced  to  accept,  so  that  upon  him  must  rest, 
after  all,  the  responsibility  of  removing  the  ancient 
barrier  to  the  aggressions  of  the  slave  power  which 
had  been  generally  accepted  as  binding  upon  the 
nation  with  almost  the  sanctity  of  the  Constitution 
itself. 

Distrusted  by  the  South  in  spite  of  all,  repro- 
bated by  many  of  his  former  allies  in  the  North, 
and  assailed  by  the  fierce  animosity  of  the  thor- 
oughly roused  antislavery  element,  Douglas  seemed 
in  danger  of  becoming  the  most  despised  of  states- 
men and  utterly  ruined  as  to  his  political  career. 
His  only  hope  lay  in  winning  against  fate  the  con- 
190 


THE   RISE   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY 

fidence  of  the  proslavery  South.  Once  more  the 
bill  was  redrawn ;  the  Dixon  amendment  was  in- 
corporated and  the  Nebraska  tract  was  divided  into 
two  territories,  Kansas  and  Nebraska;  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  was  to  apply  to  both,  and  "popular  sov- 
ereignty" was  to  determine  the  local  institutions 
of  both. 

Douglas  thoroughly  understood  the  conditions  in 
the  region  directly  affected  by  his  bill.  He  knew 
that  the  strong  and  aggressive  slaveholding  popu- 
lation of  western  Missouri  might  be  trusted  to 
cultivate  the  cherished  institution  within  the  new 
Kansas  territory,  while  across  the  Iowa  border  free 
labor  would  as  certainly  win  the  day  in  the  distant 
future  when  Nebraska  too  might  seek  statehood. 
But  Douglas  did  not  know  New  England,  nor  did 
he  appreciate  the  grim  determination  with  which 
the  antislavery  forces  of  the  whole  North  con- 
fronted this  latest  aggression  of  the  slave  power. 

A  political  issue  was  now  supplied  in  which  the 
whole  country  was  deeply  interested,  an  issue 
great  enough  and  plain  enough  to  eclipse  all  others. 
But  it  was  an  issue  which  tended  to  array  the 
North  against  the  South.  Of  all  the  nationalizing 
forces  the  only  one  now  remaining  as  a  barrier 
against  civil  war  was  the  continued  existence  of 
the  national  Democratic  party.  The  great  iniquity 
of  the  Douglas  bill  which  legislated  civil  war  into 
Kansas,  united  former  Whigs,  Americans,  Free- 
soilers  and  antislavery  Democrats  in  a  vigorous 
effort,  as  "  Anti-Nebraska  men,"  to  prevent  its 
191 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

enactment  into  law.  Failing  in  that  they  promptly 
accepted  the  challenge  which  the  act  proclaimed, 
and  determined  to  out-colonize  the  slaveholder  in 
Kansas.  There  was  ample  opportunity  for  the 
people  to  inform  themselves  respecting  the  pro- 
posed legislation.  Five  months  of  warm  discus- 
sion and  laborious  effort  were  required  to  get  the 
bill  through  the  two  houses,  and  every  step  was 
followed  with  growing  excitement  by  the  public  out- 
side. There  was  a  remnant  of  the  Whig  party  in 
Congress  to  oppose  the  passage  of  the  act,  and  not 
all  of  those  who  did  so  were  Northern  men.  Sena- 
tor Bell  of  Tennessee  was  one  who  voted  against 
the  bill.  A  few  Free-soilers  and  a  goodly  number 
of  Northern  Democrats  swelled  the  opposition. 

During  the  congressional  debate  the  question 
was  raised  whether  or  not  the  citizens  of  a  territory, 
while  yet  under  territorial  government,  could  by 
territorial  legislation  prohibit  slavery.  Senator 
Chase  introduced  an  amendment  affirming  that 
right;  but  the  amendment  was  voted  down,  and 
the  bill  passed  leaving  the  matter  in  doubt.  Ex- 
treme advocates  of  slavery  had  already  developed 
the  doctrine  that  under  the  Constitution  Congress 
had  no  power  to  exclude  slavery  from  any  United 
States  territory,  and  that  the  Missouri  Compromise 
was  from  the  beginning  unconstitutional  and  void. 
They  maintained  that,  as  Congress  had  no  authority 
to  restrict  the  right  to  hold  slaves,  much  less  had  a 
territorial  government,  which  was  itself  the  creature 
of  Congress,  any  such  power.  Not  only  had  the 

192 


THE   RISE   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY 

slaveholder  free  access  with  his  slaves  to  all  the 
territories  of  the  United  States,  but  it  was  also  the 
duty  of  the  federal  government  to  secure  him  in 
the  exercise  of  that  right.  Only  the  people  in  a 
sovereign  state  or  in  the  act  of  forming  a  sover- 
eign state  had  power  to  limit  the  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  the  slaveholders.  There  was  never  really 
any  opportunity  to  test  the  meaning  of  the  law  in 
this  regard.  Kansas  was  the  only  territory  in 
which  slaveholders  tried  to  assert  their  rights,  and 
there  the  contest  was  waged  between  two  rival 
constitutions  and  governments,  one  protecting,  the 
other  excluding  slavery. 

Two  months  before  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill 
became  law  a  practical  movement  for  checkmating 
the  plans  of  the  triumphant  proslavery  party  was 
taking  shape.  Eli  Thayer,  of  Worcester,  Massa- 
chusetts, proposed  to  his  antislavery  compeers  that 
they  cease  talking  about  auction  blocks  and  blood- 
hounds and  really  do  something  to  stay  the  spread 
of  slavery.  With  true  Yankee  wisdom  he  planned 
to  organize  a  company  to  preempt  all  the  terri- 
tories of  the  United  States  for  free  labor  and  at 
the  same  time  to  make  money  for  the  promoters. 
He  would  meet  Douglas  and  his  slaveholding 
associates  on  their  own  ground.  Thayer's  com- 
pany, with  a  capital  fixed  at  $5,000,000,  was  char- 
tered by  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  and  before 
the  close  of  the  summer  of  1854  some  five  hundred 
antislavery  emigrants,  under  the  guidance  of  the 
New  England  Emigrant  Aid  Society,  were  on  their 
o  i93 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

way  to  Kansas.  But  it  was  fatally  easy  to  colonize 
Kansas  from  Missouri,  and  the  proslavery  forces 
were  vigilant  and  active.  They  rushed  across 
the  line,  secured  the  most  desirable  lands  along 
the  border,  planted  towns,  and  established  resi- 
dence. 

The  Missourian  had  the  New  England  immigrants 
at  a  disadvantage.  He  could  easily  live  in  two 
places,  could  vote  and  fight  in  Kansas  and  then 
retire  to  his  more  secure  Missouri  home,  where  he 
would  cultivate  his  fields  and  attend  to  his  business 
or  his  pleasure  until  election  day  again  came  round. 
But  the  Northern  immigrant  was  a  settler;  he 
came  to  stay ;  he  voted  and  fought  for  his  home 
and  his  family,  and  he  did  not  run  away.  More- 
over, he  continued  to  come  to  Kansas.  Before  the 
end  of  the  year  1854  there  were  several  thousand 
free-state  settlers  in  Kansas  Territory. 

Conditions  could  hardly  have  been  more  favor- 
able for  those  who  wished  to  promote  the  disrup- 
tion of  the  Union.  Few  indeed  were  the  ties 
that  bound  the  sections  together.  Long  ago  the 
churches  had  stood  apart;  one  branch  was  utter- 
ing denunciations  against  the  sin  of  slaveholding, 
the  other  taught  the  divine  right  and  duty  of  slave- 
holding.  Some  commercial  interests  tended  to 
some  extent  to  hold  the  states  together,  but  others 
drove  them  apart.  The  South  remembered  the 
time  when  the  plantation  states  were  growing  rich 
under  slave  labor;  now  the  wealth  of  the  manu- 
facturing states  left  them  far  behind.  The  belief 

194 


THE  RISE   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY 

that  a  protective  tariff  enriched  the  manufacturers 
at  the  expense  of  the  planters  had  become  tradi- 
tional. Visions  of  a  great  free  trade  empire  to  be 
built  up  around  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  directed  and 
controlled  by  the  Gulf  states  of  the  Union,  danced 
before  the  eyes  of  Southern  statesmen.  If  only 
the  states  of  the  South  could  become  master  of 
their  own  destiny,  it  seemed  that  endless  riches 
and  unlimited  power  might  be  theirs.  Commer- 
cial ideals  tended  to  disruption.  The  purse-proud 
North,  the  South  believed,  was  bent  upon  overpow- 
ering and  humiliating  the  slave  section.  There 
was  a  widespread  belief  that,  as  a  literal  fact,  mill- 
ions of  dollars  were  being  used  to  rob  the  slave- 
holders of  their  rights  in  Kansas.  A  generation 
had  grown  up  honestly  believing  that  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery  possessed  all  moral  and  constitu- 
tional sanctions.  They  could  not  understand  the 
grounds  of  Northern  opposition ;  and  no  more 
could  the  North  understand  the  Southern  position 
respecting  slavery.  For  a  whole  generation  a 
false  system  of  moral  instruction  —  of  anti-Chris- 
tian teaching  —  in  North  and  South  had  stifled  the 
spirit  of  brotherhood  and  sown  the  dragon's  teeth 
of  misunderstanding  and  misrepresentation. 

We  are  told  that  the  Mohammedan  child  is 
taught  to  lisp  the  word  "infidel"  with  all  possible 
spite  and  venom.  It  is  made  a  part  of  his  religion 
to  hate  and  despise  the  infidel.  Hence  it  follows 
that  not  only  may  a  Mohammedan  murder  a  Chris- 
tian with  a  clear  conscience,  but  that  he  cannot 

195 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

with  a  clear  conscience  refrain  from  engaging  in 
murderous  warfare. 

A  similar  training  led  abolitionist  and  Southern 
" fire-eater"  to  hate  and  despise  each  other.  In 
many  a  Northern  family  children  grew  up  believing 
that  life  in  the  South  was  typified  by  the  blood- 
hound, the  auction  block,  and  the  mob.  And  the 
children  of  the  plantations  were  in  their  turn  made 
to  regard  the  pure-minded,  self-sacrificing  anti- 
slavery  philanthropists  as  malignant  aggressors, 
delighting  in  stirring  up  the  negroes  to  extermi- 
nating warfare  against  the  white  South.  This 
was  the  bending  of  the  twig.  By  the  time  of  the 
rise  of  the  Kansas  agitation  the  inclination  of  the 
tree  was  irretrievably  fixed. 

Out  of  the  struggle  for  the  possession  of  Kansas 
came  a  new  alignment  of  political  forces,  and  the 
Democratic  party  found  its  position  seriously  as- 
sailed by  a  new  party  which  had  almost  no  support 
in  the  slave  states,  but  into  which  went  large  num- 
bers of  Northern  Democrats.  This  desertion  forced 
the  old  party  to  rely  more  and  more  upon  its  South- 
ern membership,  and  aided  the  geographical  divi- 
sion which  had  become  imminent.  The  name  of 
the  Republican  party  was  exceedingly  popular  in 
the  North.  It  was  one  which  had  been  associated 
with  American  politics  almost  from  the  beginning 
of  our  national  history,  and  had  never  quite  dis- 
appeared from  party  nomenclature.  It  breathed 
the  spirit  of  Jefferson,  and  the  chief  plank  in  its 
first  national  platform  was  selected  from  the  oft- 
196 


THE   RISE   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY 

repeated  utterances  of  the  sage  of  Monticello, 
while  its  preamble  affirmed  the  action  of  the  con- 
vention to  be  that  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  who  were  in  favor  of  "  restoring  the  action 
of  the  federal  government  to  the  principles  of 
Washington  and  Jefferson."  Southern  men  viewed 
the  new  party  in  a  different  light.  To  them  it 
was  an  organ  of  abolitionism,  a  sectional  party 
with  designs  of  aggression.  Extremists  resented 
the  appropriation  of  the  honored  name  of  Jefferson, 
and  refused  to  apply  it  to  the  arrogant  organiza- 
tion which  they  angrily  referred  to  as  the  "  Black 
Abolition"  or  "Black  Republican"  party. 

For  the  second  time  in  our  party  history,  Jeffer- 
son, the  one  transcendent  party  organizer,  had 
become  divided  against  himself.  The  first  in- 
stance occurred  immediately  after  the  death  of 
Jefferson,  in  1826,  when  the  opponents  of  Jackson 
and  Van  Buren  undertook  the  formation  of  a 
national  party  to  which  they  gave  the  old  name, 
Republican,  which  Jefferson  had  preferred.  These 
National  Republicans  arraigned  the  Jackson  Demo- 
crats as  dangerous  innovators  who  had  departed 
from  the  safe  and  well-tested  principles  of  the 
early  Republicans,  while  they  professed  to  be  them- 
selves their  only  true  and  legitimate  successors. 
But  no  single  issue  stood  out  prominently  as  a 
standard  and  test  by  which  the  defection  of  the 
Jackson  Democracy  from  the  Jeffersonian  Democ- 
racy could  be  established.  The  contest  became  a 
mere  war  of  words ;  the  new  party  failed  to  make 
197 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

good  their  contention,  and  their  enemies  succeeded 
in  fastening  upon  them  the  stigma  of  having 
revived  an  obsolete  and  unpopular  Federalism. 

The  situation  in  1856  was  entirely  different. 
Very  definite  issues  connected  the  newly  formed 
Republican  party  with  the  teachings  of  Jefferson. 
The  party  was  organized  with  the  express  purpose 
of  giving  effect  to  that  policy  in  respect  to  the 
extension  of  slavery  which  Jefferson  had  uniformly 
approved.  He  had  favored  the  exclusion  of  slavery 
from  the  Northwest  Territory  by  act  of  the  fed- 
eral government,  as  had  Southern  statesmen  gen- 
erally. The  purchase  of  Louisiana  had  indeed 
involved  an  unavoidable  slight  expansion  of  the 
slave  area,  but  it  was  President  Jefferson's  fixed 
purpose  to  reserve  all  the  unoccupied  portions  of 
the  Purchase  for  free  labor.  Looking  with  regret 
upon  the  growing  proslavery  sentiment  of  the 
South,  he  approved  of  the  restriction  placed  upon 
the  extension  of  slavery  by  the  Compromise  of 
1820.  It  was  the  repeal  of  this  act  which  brought 
the  Republican  party  into  existence,  and  it  stood 
for  the  principles  and  the  policy  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary fathers  on  the  slavery  question.  Of  this 
policy  no  better  representative  could  be  found  than 
the  father  of  the  old  Republican  party. 

But  from  the  Jeffersonian  arsenal  came  also  the 
weapons  which  armed  the  opposing  forces.  The 
extreme  proslavery  section  of  the  Democratic  party 
likewise  appealed  to  the  teaching  of  Jefferson  in 
support  of  their  most  pronounced  views.  The 
198 


THE   RISE   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY 

explanation  is  not  far  to  seek.  During  the  great 
man's  lifetime  slavery  was  in  no  sense  a  party 
question ;  his  remarks  upon  the  subject  were  not 
those  of  the  leader  of  a  party,  but  simply  those  of 
a  man  and  a  citizen.  The  relation  of  the  state  to 
the  central  government  was,  however,  a  party 
question  of  the  very  first  importance  at  the  time 
the  old  Republican  party  was  organizing.  The 
one  great  menace  to  human  liberty,  in  the  eyes  of 
the  founders  of  the  party,  was  centralized  govern- 
ment. Their  opponents,  the  Federalists,  were 
always  charged  with  leaning  toward  monarchy. 
Jefferson  counselled  revolution  as  preferable  to  a 
tame  submission  to  the  enslavement  of  a  cen- 
tralized government.  The  one  doctrine  which  his 
party  inculcated  as  of  supreme  consequence  to  a 
free  people  was  the  maintenance  of  the  rights  of 
the  individual  states,  along  with  the  restriction  of 
the  powers  of  the  general  government.  The  un- 
foreseen entanglement  of  the  two  principles,  — 
the  support  of  slavery  and  of  the  doctrine  of  State 
Rights,  —  by  which  the  Democratic  party  became 
committed  to  both,  became  in  after  years  the  fatal 
dividing  wedge  between  the  sections;  but  that 
union  was  not  original  or  essential. 

The  new  Republican  party  of  1856  embodied 
portions  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in 
the  party  platform  that  they  might  use  the  name 
of  Jefferson  to  conjure  with  in  opposition  to  slavery. 
The  Democratic  party  embodied  the  Virginia  and 
Kentucky  Resolutions  as  a  part  of  their  platform, 
199 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

that  they  might  use  the  name  of  Jefferson  along 
with  that  of  Madison  to  conjure  with  in  support 
of  extreme  views  respecting  the  use  of  the  states 
in  resistance  to  federal  encroachment.  Thus,  by 
the  accident  of  time  and  circumstance,  the  founder 
of  the  old  Republican  party  was  made  to  appear 
divided  against  himself.  The  antislavery  Jefferson 
inspired  the  new  Republican  party;  Jefferson,  as 
the  inveterate  enemy  of  centralized  government, 
gave  aid  and  comfort  to  the  extreme  faction  of 
secessionists  in  the  Democratic  party.  The  two 
doctrines  were  worked  at  cross  purposes.  Over 
either  question  alone  there  could  have  been  no 
serious  war,  no  disruption  of  the  Union.  In  the 
defence  of  slavery  only  the  South  could  never 
have  been  united  as  it  was  in  1861.  It  was  rather 
an  unreasoning  dread  of  dire  and  intolerable  calam- 
ities incident  to  a  centralized  government  con- 
trolled by  an  unfriendly  section  which  precipitated 
the  crisis.  Slavery,  as  the  most  peculiar,  the  most 
spectacular  and  tangible  of  sectional  institutions, 
was  made  the  chief  occasion  rather  than  the  prin- 
cipal cause  of  the  array  of  the  new  Republican 
doctrine  of  the  supremacy  of  the  central  govern- 
ment against  the  old  Republican  doctrine  of  the 
sovereignty  of  the  independent  states. 

The  situation  in  1856  was  unprecedented.  The 
new  party  commanded  the  support  of  only  a  limited 
portion  of  the  country,  while  in  one  great  section 
it  had  practically  no  existence.  The  other  was  a 
truly  national  body  whose  organization  extended 

200 


THE    RISE   OF  THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY 

throughout  the  whole  country,  and  in  the  North 
it  still  held  nearly  half  the  voting  strength.  Yet 
the  great  national  party  had  been,  during  the  two 
preceding  years,  repeatedly  beaten  by  small  major- 
ities in  local  elections  over  a  rapidly  enlarging 
area.  The  conditions  made  it  possible  for  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress  and  the  presidency  to  fall 
into  the  hands  of  a  party  whose  voters  represented 
only  a  little  more  than  one-fourth  of  the  people. 
To  the  convinced  secessionist  nothing  could  be 
more  advantageous.  The  Congress  which  was 
elected  after  the  passing  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill,  had  in  the  lower  House  enough  men  of 
the  new  party  to  elect  the  Speaker.  On  account 
of  the  presence  of  third  party  members,  Know- 
nothings  and  a  few  Whigs,  the  election  was  ac- 
complished only  after  a  two  months'  contest,  and 
was  finally  determined  by  a  plurality  vote  under 
a  special  rule  of  the  House.  So  it  came  about 
that  a  minority  of  the  members  of  the  House, 
many  of  whom  were  elected  by  small  majorities 
or  by  mere  pluralities,  controlled  its  organization ; 
while  the  Democratic  majority,  whose  members 
from  the  South  had  been  elected  by  large  majori- 
ties, were  helpless.  A  political  party  representing 
a  section,  when  confronted  by  a  party  representing 
the  entire  country,  has,  under  our  system,  political 
power  beyond  its  numbers. 

The  secessionists  were  never  before  in  so  favor- 
able a  position  to  make  inroads  upon  the  South- 
ern Union  sentiment.  From  time  immemorial 


201 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

threats  of  secession  had  now  and  then  been  made ; 
but  not  until  the  year  1855  did  such  threats  ema- 
nate from  a  definite  section  without  meeting  serious 
challenge  in  that  section.  When  the  Republican 
party  arose,  the  whole  South  was  drawn  together 
to  oppose  a  sectional  Northern  party.  True  Union- 
ists of  the  Southern  states  were  led  to  believe  that 
the  surest  way  to  save  the  Union  was  to  give  all 
possible  emphasis  to  the  danger  to  be  incurred  by 
the  election  of  a  President  from  the  new  party. 


202 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  WAR   IN   KANSAS 

THE  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  became  a  law  on  the 
3Oth  of  May,  1854.  The  reaction  of  feeling  over 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  deep 
and  widespread,  and  the  election  of  the  following 
autumn  was  made  the  occasion  for  calling  to  ac- 
count the  members  of  the  lower  House  who  had 
voted  for  the  measure.  Among  them  were  forty- 
two  Northern  Democrats,  of  whom  only  seven 
were  reflected.  Mr.  Rhodes,  the  historian,  quotes 
the  estimate  of  the  National  Intelligencer  which 
places  the  Democratic  losses  due  to  the  bill  at 
347,742,  and  even  these  figures  do  not  fairly  rep- 
resent the  magnitude  of  Northern  opposition.  Mr. 
Rhodes  is  of  the  opinion  that,  if  the  Northern  peo- 
ple had  been  properly  led,  if  there  had  been  at 
hand  an  effective  agency  for  the  expression  of 
public  opinion,  the  mischief  would  have  been  un- 
done and  the  old  Compromise  restored.  But  the 
Know-nothing  party  was  still  extending  its  con- 
fusing and  paralyzing  influence  throughout  the 
land,  and  there  were  many  who  yet  cherished  the 
vain  hope  of  restoring  the  Whig  party.  The  Re- 
publican party  had  not  yet  assumed  organic  form. 
203 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

A  few  of  the  states  brought  out  candidates  under 
that  name  in  the  autumn  of  1854,  but  many  months 
were  yet  to  elapse  before  the  name  was  generally 
adopted  in  the  North  and  the  sentiment  which  it 
represented  had  become  crystallized  into  form  for 
influencing  national  politics.  It  is  not  improbable 
that,  but  for  the  bewildering  effect  of  the  secret 
dark-lantern  party,  the  new  party  with  the  old-new 
name  might  have  been  gotten  into  working  order 
in  place  of  the  Whig  party  in  the  South  as  well 
as  in  the  North.  Of  the  Southern  Whigs  there 
remained  a  few  who  were  disposed  to  resist  the 
Democratic  attempt  to  force  slavery  into  territory 
so  long  consecrated  to  freedom.  If  to  this  issue 
had  been  joined  open  and  professed  devotion  to  the 
Union,  such  a  party  would  have  gathered  strength 
in  the  South.  The  Republicans  discarded  all  abo- 
lition intentions.  Few  in  the  North  were  really 
inclined  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  states ; 
they  were  satisfied  with  opposing'its  extension,  and 
that  was  the  policy  of  the  Republican  party.  Had 
the  party  only  once  succeeded  in  effecting  an  organi- 
zation in  the  South,  thereby  becoming  a  national 
institution,  it  would  have  changed  the  whole  after 
history  of  the  country/ 

But  during  the  months  when  the  permanence  of 
the  new  party  hung  in  doubt,  civil  war  developed 
on  the  plains  of  Kansas.  When  Andrew  H. 
Reeder  of  Pennsylvania,  the  first  territorial  gov- 
ernor of  Kansas,  entered  upon  his  duties,  in  Octo- 
ber, 1854,  he  found  the  settlers  living  at  peace  if  not 
204 


THE   WAR   IN   KANSAS 

in  harmony.  Northern  immigrants  had  been  coming 
since  midsummer.  They  had  found  the  proslavery 
forces  already  established  ;  but  there  was  ample 
room  for  all,  and  no  occasion  for  conflict  had 
appeared.  The  governor  set  November  29  as  the 
day  for  choosing  a  territorial  delegate  to  Congress, 
and,  by  quite  gratuitous  illegality,  an  army  of 
Missourians  invaded  the  territory  on  that  day  to 
vote  for  a  candidate  who  would  have  been  elected 
by  the  settlers  without  their  aid.  So  the  year 
passed  without  serious  disturbance. 

Trouble  began  when  the  day  came  for  electing  the 
territorial  legislature,  March  30,  1855.  Five  thou- 
sand Missourians,  "  with  guns  on  their  shoulders, 
revolvers  stuffing  their  belts,  bowie-knives  protrud- 
ing from  their  boot  tops," l  took  possession  of  every 
district  but  one,  and  a  legislature  was  chosen  to  suit 
the  invaders.  Governor  Reeder  took  the  side  of 
the  outraged  settlers  and  was  disposed  to  set  aside 
the  election ;  but  the  free  state  party  was  so  effec- 
tually intimidated  that  protests  were  presented  from 
only  seven  districts.  New  elections  were  ordered 
in  those  seven  ;  but  in  the  remaining  districts,  when 
the  governor  was  confronted  by  armed  men  who 
gave  him  the  option  of  issuing  certificates  to  the 
men  who  had  received  the  most  votes  or  being 
immediately  riddled  with  shot  from  their  revolvers, 
he  issued  the  certificates  demanded. 

The  legislature  so  chosen  met  and  soon  became 
unanimously  proslavery,  for  the  members  from  the 

1  Rhodes's  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  II.,  p.  281. 
205 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

seven  contesting  districts  were  refused  admission, 
while  the  single  free-soiler  from  the  district  not 
visited  by  the  Missourians  felt  himself  so  lonely 
and  powerless  that  he  resigned.  A  body  of  laws 
was  at  once  enacted  that  would  have  done  honor 
even  to  Draco.  To  assist  a  fugitive  slave  was 
death.  No  man  could  hold  office,  no  attorney 
could  practise  at  the  bar,  who  did  not  first  swear  a 
solemn  oath  to  support  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  It 
was  made  a  penitentiary  offence  even  to  express  a 
doubt  as  to  the  legality  of  slavery  in  the  territory. 
Speaking  of  these  first  Kansas  laws,  Senator  Clay- 
ton of  Delaware  remarked  that  John  C.  Calhoun 
himself,  had  he  been  alive  and  had  he  lived  in 
Kansas,  would  have  been  in  danger  of  going  to 
the  state's  prison. 

With  such  a  legislature  Governor  Reeder  could 
not  live  in  harmony.  In  July  he  visited  Washing- 
ton to  secure  the  support  of  the  administration  in 
the  interest  of  justice  to  the  settlers ;  but  the  views 
of  the  federal  government  were  hopelessly  at  vari- 
ance with  his  own.  President  Pierce,  representing 
his  party,  took  the  position  that  the  Democrats,  in 
a  spirit  of  conciliation  and  compromise,  had  offered 
two  territories,  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  for  settle- 
ment. Seen  from  the  distance  of  Washington,  they 
looked  equally  inviting.  One  was  for  free  state 
settlers,  the  other  for  slaveholders.  For  free-soil 
immigrants  to  enter  Kansas  was  of  the  nature  of 
invasion ;  and  the  continuous  influx  of  Northern 
settlers  into  Kansas  was  regarded  by  the  Democrats 
206 


THE   WAR   IN   KANSAS 

at  Washington  as  a  deliberate  and  systematic  inter- 
ference with  Southern  rights  by  the  enemies  of 
slavery. 

Governor  Reeder  had  gone  to  Kansas  fully  in 
sympathy  with  the  administrative  views.  He  had 
even  taken  pains  to  declare  himself  entirely  un- 
trammelled by  any  antislavery  scruples  ;  he  would 
"as  soon  buy  a  negro  as  a  horse."  But  as  an  ac- 
tual resident  and  responsible  official  in  Kansas  he 
soon  viewed  the  situation  in  a  different  light.  In- 
stead of  finding  fanatical  abolitionists  hired  with 
Northern  money  to  stay  in  Kansas  only  long 
enough  to  cheat  the  slave-owners  out  of  their 
rights,  he  found  peaceable,  inoffensive,  unarmed 
citizens.  Many  of  them  were  fellow-Democrats 
who  had  voted  for  Pierce,  but  they  all  much  pre- 
ferred buying  horses  to  buying  slaves.  In  the 
first  territorial  legislature  chosen  by  the  free-soil- 
ers  in  opposition  to  that  elected  by  the  armed  Mis- 
sourians,  more  than  half  were  Democrats ;  and  at 
about  the  same  date  the  New  York  Independent 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Kansas  settlers 
were  not  conspicuously  of  abolition  principles, 
some  of  the  free-soilers  being  from  the  slave 
states.  In  short,  Governor  Reeder  was  too  honest 
and  candid  a  man  not  to  become  a  free-soiler  him- 
self. He  was  consequently  removed  from  office, 
and  a  more  pliable  proslavery  Democrat  succeeded 
him. 

Dr.  Charles  Robinson  became  the  acknowledged 
leader  of  the  free  state  settlers.  He  was  a  man 

207 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

who  had  had  experience  in  California  in  practical 
methods  of  state  building.  In  his  judgment  it  was 
the  part  of  statesmanship  first  to  procure  a  supply 
of  Sharpe's  rifles.  This  was  accordingly  done, 
and  the  free-soil  forces  then  gathered  at  Law- 
rence in  August  and  repudiated  the  fraudulent 
existing  legislature.  They  also  took  immediate 
steps  to  have  Kansas  admitted  as  a  state  without 
waiting  for  an  enabling  act  of  Congress.  Such 
proceedings  were  informal,  but  they  were  not  un- 
precedented. A  constitutional  convention  met  at 
Topeka  in  October,  1855,  and  formulated  a  state 
constitution  which  prohibited  slavery.  Having 
been  submitted  to  popular  vote,  it  was  almost 
unanimously  ratified,  the  proslavery  party  ignoring 
the  whole  matter.  In  January  of  the  following 
year  a  full  set  of  state  officers,  with  Dr.  Robinson 
as  governor,  a  legislature,  and  a  representative  to 
Congress  were  elected,  and  Kansas  made  formal 
application  for  admission  as  a  state  under  the 
Topeka  constitution.  The  new  legislature,  having 
met  in  March,  1856,  to  complete  the  organization 
of  the  state,  adjourned  to  reassemble  in  July.  A 
bill  admitting  the  free  state  of  Kansas  passed  the 
lower  House  of  Congress,  but  was  rejected  by  the 
Senate.  In  this  dilemma  the  free  state  settlers 
saw  nothing  to  do  but  to  stand  by  the  government 
which  they  had  themselves  set  up,  even  without 
the  federal  sanction  which  they  had  sought. 
From  the  territorial  government,  strong  in  admin- 
istrative support,  they  could  expect  only  perse- 

208 


THE   WAR   IN   KANSAS 

cution.  As  early  as  January  of  that  year  the 
President  had  issued  a  message  warning  the  anti- 
slavery  settlers  to  desist  from  their  unlawful  acts, 
and  the  territorial  judges  proceeded  to  treat  the 
acts  of  the  new  state  government  as  acts  of  treason 
against  the  United  States. 

Kansas  was  thus  supplied  with  two  distinct  and 
hostile  governments,  the  one  organized  pursuant 
to  an  act  of  Congress,  the  other  by  the  unauthor- 
ized acts  of  a  portion  of  the  settlers.  The  sup- 
porters of  both  were  thoroughly  armed,  and  were 
rapidly  becoming  organized  and  drilled  as  soldiers. 
The  state  legislature  met  in  July,  according  to  ad- 
journment, but  was  promptly  dispersed  by  federal 
soldiers  acting  under  orders  from  Washington. 
President  Pierce  had  pledged  "the  interposition 
of  the  whole  power  of  the  general  government 
as  well  to  maintain  the  laws  of  the  territory  as 
those  of  the  Union." 

Mr.  Rhodes  gives  two  pictures  which  are  well 
fitted  to  illustrate  the  effect  of  the  situation  in 
Kansas  upon  the  country  at  large  during  the  early 
months  of  1856.  The  first  is  a  scene  in  Mont- 
gomery, Alabama.  Colonel  Bufort,  an  Alabama 
planter,  had  sold  slaves  to  the  value  of  twenty 
thousand  dollars,  which  he  had  devoted  to  the 
equipment  of  a  battalion  of  three  hundred  soldiers, 
to  be  used  in  fighting  the  battles  of  Southern 
rights  in  Kansas.  "The  day  that  Bufort's  bat- 
talion started  from  Montgomery,  they  marched 
to  the  Baptist  church.  The  Methodist  minister 
p  209 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

solemnly  invoked  the  divine  blessing  on  the  enter- 
prise; the  Baptist  pastor  gave  Bufort  a  finely 
bound  Bible,  and  said  that  a  subscription  had 
been  raised  to  present  each  emigrant  with  a  copy 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Three  or  four  thousand 
citizens  gathered  on  the  river  bank  to  bid  them 
farewell,  and  there  were  not  lacking  the  bright 
smiles  and  happy  faces  of  the  ladies  to  cheer 
them  on.  A  distinguished  citizen  made  them  an 
address,  saying  that  on  them  rested  the  future 
welfare  of  the  South ;  they  were  armed  with  the 
Bible,  a  weapon  more  potent  than  Sharpens  rifles ; 
and,  in  the  language  of  Lord  Nelson,  *  every  man 
was  expected  to  do  his  duty.' " l 

The  counterpart  to  this  picture  was  seen  in  New 
Haven,  Connecticut.  "  Charles  B.  Lines,  a  deacon 
of  a  New  Haven  congregation,  had  enlisted  a  com- 
pany of  seventy-nine  emigrants.  A  meeting  was 
held  in  the  church  shortly  before  their  departure, 
for  the  purpose  of  raising  funds.  Many  clergymen 
and  many  of  the  Yale  College  faculty  were  present. 
The  leader  of  the  party  said  that  Sharpe's  rifles 
were  lacking,  and  they  were  needed  for  self- 
defence.  After  an  earnest  address  from  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  the  subscription  began.  Professor 
Silliman  started  the  subscription  with  one  Sharpe's 
rifle;  the  pastor  of  the  church  gave  the  second; 
other  gentlemen  and  some  ladies  followed  the  ex- 
ample. As  fifty  was  the  number  wanted,  Beecher 
said  that  if  twenty-five  were  pledged  on  the  spot, 

1  Rhodes's  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  II.,  p.  151. 
210 


THE   WAR   IN    KANSAS 

Plymouth  church  would  furnish  the  rest.  Previ- 
ously to  this  meeting,  he  had  declared  that  for  the 
slaveholders  of  Kansas  the  Sharpe's  rifle  was  a 
greater  moral  agency  than  the  Bible;  and  from 
that  time  the  favorite  arms  of  Northern  emigrants 
became  known  as  '  Beecher's  Bibles.'  "  l 

Thus  the  best  people,  North  and  South,  were 
devoted  to  preparation  for  civil  war.  The  Chris- 
tian Church  had  become  an  organ  for  propagating 
the  doctrine  of  hate.  Each  side  entered  into  the 
contest  with  holy  purpose  and  clear  conscience. 
There  was  intense  excitement  in  both  sections. 
In  some  of  the  state  legislatures  the  proposition 
was  made  to  vote  money  to  equip  men  to  do  battle 
in  Kansas.  In  the  early  spring  months  Colonel 
Bufort  and  his  men  and  the  Connecticut  deacon 
and  his  men  appeared  in  Kansas.  In  a  few  weeks 
each  Yankee  had  a  farm  and  the  prospect  of  a 
crop.  The  Southern  settler  knew  neither  how  to 
plough  nor  how  to  sow,  and  he  settled  down  to  eat 
the  substance  of  the  already  impoverished  slave- 
holding  contributors.  The  previous  winter  had 
been  a  veritable  freeze-out  to  slavery.  The  cold 
was  something  terrific.  One  man  who  owned  nine- 
teen negroes  was  obliged  to  draw  his  own  wood 
and  chop  it  with  his  own  hands  to  prevent  his 
slaves  from  freezing ;  and  even  then  one  of  them 
froze  to  death  in  his  bed.  The  Northern  settler 
knew  how  to  combat  the  forces  of  nature.  He 
got  some  land  and  went  to  work.  The  Southerner 
1  ibid.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  153. 

211 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

was  not  equipped  for  such  a  struggle ;  he  did  not 
know  how  to  work,  and  he  could  not  afford  to 
import  slaves,  as  the  risk  was  too  great.  The 
actual  number  of  slaves  in  Kansas  was  never  large, 
and  we  now  know  that  there  was  never  much 
danger  that  Kansas  would  become  a  slave  state. 
Slavery  was  rapidly  dying  out  in  Missouri,  and  on 
the  wind-swept  Kansas  plains  it  could  never  have 
taken  permanent  root.  The  peculiar  climatic  and 
industrial  conditions  were  found  to  tax  to  the  ut- 
most the  most  hardy,  the  most  skilled,  and  the  most 
resourceful  pioneers  that  the  world  has  known. 
Had  the  Northern  abolitionist  only  been  wise 
enough,  he  might  have  given  the  slaveholder  a  free 
hand,  and  with  perfect  equanimity  have  watched 
for  him  to  try  conclusions  with  nature.  Not  only 
would  he  have  seen  the  master  compelled  to  labor 
with  his  own  hands  to  protect  his  negroes  from 
the  cold,  he  would  also  have  seen  him  forced  to 
beg  during  summer  to  keep  them  from  starving. 

It  was  not  the  strength,  but  the  weakness,  of 
slavery  which  maddened  the  western  Missourian 
to  the  frenzy  of  civil  war.  Already  in  the  eastern 
part  of  his  state  there  was  a  growing  antislavery 
sentiment.  Only  in  the  removing  of  the  forests  of 
the  West  could  slave  labor  be  profitably  used.  In 
Kansas  there  were  no  forests  to  remove,  and  there 
were  no  labors  in  which  the  use  of  slaves  could  be 
made  profitable.  By  the  efforts  of  the  free  state 
men  in  Kansas  the  Missourians  felt  themselves  to 
be  attacked  at  a  spot  where  they  were  peculiarly 

212 


THE   WAR   IN    KANSAS 

weak.  A  similar  feeling  pervaded  the  entire  South. 
Slavery  was  vulnerable.  Uncle  Toms  Cabin,  which 
appeared  as  a  newspaper  serial  in  1852,  was  every- 
where read,  and  profoundly  impressed  public  opin- 
ion. The  irritation  of  the  South  was  aggravated 
by  the  visit  to  the  United  States  of  the  Hungarian 
liberator,  Kossuth.  But  more  than  all  was  Helper's 
Impending  Crisis  influential  in  rousing  the  South 
to  fury.  This  was  an  exposition  of  the  weakness 
of  slavery  from  the  standpoint  of  a  white  man  of 
the  South.  It  was  not  in  any  sense  a  great  book, 
and  would  under  ordinary  circumstances  have  found 
but  few  readers ;  but  it  exasperated  the  Southern 
political  leaders  even  more  than  did  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin.  From  the  beginning  these  leaders  had 
taken  strong  ground  against  the  free  discussion 
of  the  slavery  question.  As  they  should  have  fore- 
seen, the  very  effort  to  hamper  free  discussion 
tended  to  promote  discussion,  and  the  slaveholders 
had  long  been  forced  to  listen  to  the  abolition 
arraignment  of  slavery  as  a  sin  against  God  and 
a  crime  against  humanity.  But  Helper's  book  was 
the  sting  of  a  viper  in  their  own  bosom  ;  it  exposed 
the  folly  of  maintaining  an  institution  which  worked 
only  harm  to  the  white  race  and  crippled  the  devel- 
opment of  the  South. 

All  influences  united  to  make  civil  war  in  Kansas 
inevitable.  Various  incidents  had  occurred  during 
the  time  in  which  the  two  rival  governments  were 
becoming  established  and  pitted  against  each  other 
to  embitter  the  feeling  between  the  opposing  parties. 
213 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

A  quarrel  arose  in  November,  1855,  between 
two  settlers  over  a  claim,  and  a  slave  state  man 
shot  a  free  state  man.  The  murderer  escaped  for 
his  life,  but  a  friend  of  the  murdered  man  was 
said  to  have  uttered  threats  against  an  alleged 
accomplice.  Thereupon  officers  of  the  distrusted 
proslavery  government  arrested  the  free-soiler's 
friend  and  were  conveying  him  off  for  trial  when  a 
rescuing  party  from  Lawrence  and  its  vicinity 
delivered  him.  All  this  occurred  without  blood- 
shed. Sheriff  Jones  was  enraged  at  the  loss  of 
his  prisoner ;  and,  being  a  Missourian,  he  issued  a 
call  to  his  friends  in  Missouri  to  assist  in  the  main- 
tenance of  the  law.  They  responded  in  large 
numbers.  Appeal  was  also  made  to  the  new 
federal  governor,  Shannon  of  Ohio,  who  called 
out  the  territorial  militia  to  assist  the  sheriff.  The 
citizens  of  Lawrence  had  just  received  a  new 
instalment  of  Sharpe's  rifles,  and  they  mustered  a 
troop  of  about  six  hundred  men  and  placed  the 
town  in  a  position  of  defence.  When  the  com- 
bined troop  of  Missourians  and  Kansas  militia 
appeared  preparations  for  defence  had  been  com- 
pleted ;  but  Governor  Shannon  intervened,  and 
secured  a  peaceable  settlement  of  the  controversy. 
This  was  called  the  bloodless  "  battle  of  Wakarusa." 
It  was  in  the  midst  of  such  scenes  that  the 
free  state  government  was  organized,  and  inspired 
by  such  occurrences  the  people  of  Alabama  and 
of  Connecticut  raised  troops  and  armed  them  for 
the  "  Kansas  War." 

214 


THE   WAR   IN   KANSAS 

Governor  Shannon's  peacemaking  was  not  of 
long  endurance.  In  the  following  spring,  when 
free  state  citizens  resisted  an  attempt  of  Sheriff 
Jones  to  arrest  a  member  of  the  Lawrence  rescue 
party,  the  United  States  troops  were  again  ordered 
to  his  assistance  and  six  citizens  of  Lawrence  were 
placed  under  arrest.  Before  leaving  the  town  the 
sheriff  was  wounded  by  a  shot  in  the  back  by  an 
unknown  person.  The  people  of  Lawrence 
promptly  disavowed  any  share  in  the  act,  but  the 
event  served  to  add  fuel  to  the  flame.  The  officers 
of  the  free  state  government  were  placed  under 
arrest  or  driven  from  the  territory  under  the 
charge  of  treason.  In  May  the  United  States 
marshal  of  Kansas  Territory  issued  a  proclamation 
to  the  people  stating  that  he  was  about  to  make 
certain  arrests  in  Lawrence,  where  he  had  reason 
to  expect  resistance,  and  he  therefore  ordered  the 
people  to  appear  at  Lecompton  in  such  numbers  as 
to  enforce  the  law.  Throughout  western  Missouri 
and  Kansas  this  was  hailed  by  the  proslavery  party 
as  the  set  time  to  take  vengeance  upon  Lawrence. 
Lawrence  determined  to  make  no  resistance,  but 
called  upon  the  governor  to  protect  the  town. 
Some  seven  hundred  Missouri  and  Kansas  mili- 
tia, with  Bufort's  men  from  Alabama,  appeared  to 
enforce  the  orders  of  the  marshal.  The  writs  were 
served  without  resistance  and  then  the  entire  force 
was  placed  by  the  marshal  in  command  of  the 
sheriff,  who  proceeded  to  destroy  the  unresisting 
town.  This  was  on  the  2ist  of  May,  and  on  the 
215 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

next  day  Senator  Sumner  was  struck  down  and 
beaten  in  the  Senate  chamber  by  an  enraged 
Southern  member.  These  two  events,  news  of 
which  reached  the  country  almost  at  the  same 
moment,  sounded  the  key-note  for  the  presidential 
campaign  of  that  year. 

The  immediate  effect  of  the  burning  of  Lawrence 
and  the  caning  of  Sumner  was  a  reaction  in  favor 
of  the  free  state  party.  There  had  been  all  along 
a  strong  tendency  on  the  part  of  conservatives, 
North  and  South,  to  draw  together  in  cooperative 
support  of  the  Union  on  the  basis  of  fair  dealing. 
In  January,  1856,  while  Southern  planters  and 
New  England  deacons  were  raising  troops  to  do 
battle  in  Kansas,  the  conservative  Whigs  of  Boston 
entertained  their  old  party  friend,  Senator  Toombs 
of  Georgia,  and  they  extended  to  him  the  privilege 
of  addressing  a  large  Boston  audience  on  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery.  After  returning  to  Washington, 
Toombs  expressed  the  opinion  in  the  Senate  that 
Kansas  would  be  a  free  state.  There  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt  that  if  the  national  Whig  party 
had  been  in  complete  working  order  there  would 
have  been  in  1856  a  great  Whig  victory.  It  is  not 
at  all  improbable  that  Robert  Toombs  might  have 
been  made  President  upon  an  issue  for  the  admis- 
sion of  Kansas  as  a  free  state  and  the  undoing  of 
the  Democratic  legislation  for  the  repeal  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise.  As  a  Southern  gentleman, 
President  Toombs  would  not  have  been  satisfied 
until  it  was  as  safe  and  as  proper  for  Senator  Wil- 
216 


THE   WAR   IN   KANSAS 

son  of  Massachusetts  to  discourse  to  the  people  of 
Georgia  on  the  merits  of  free  labor,  as  for  him,  a 
Georgia  senator,  to  discourse  in  Massachusetts 
upon  the  merits  of  slave  labor.  When  this  had 
been  accomplished  there  would  be  no  longer  any 
serious  problem  as  to  the  institution  of  slavery. 

There  would  indeed  have  remained  a  race  prob- 
lem ;  but  we  should  probably  have  been  much 
nearer  a  satisfactory  settlement  of  the  race  prob- 
lem than  we  are  now,  fifty  years  later.  The  method 
finally  adopted  of  abolishing  slavery  and  the  inci- 
dents and  conditions  growing  out  of  the  Civil  War 
have  greatly  aggravated  the  race  problem.  A 
broadly  national  party  to  confront  the  Democrats 
in  1856,  and  give  effective  expression  to  the 
national  revulsion  at  sight  of  the  approach  of  frat- 
ricidal strife  and  the  disruption  of  the  Union, 
might  have  delivered  us  from  both. 

Robert  Toombs,  as  a  Union  man  and  a  Southern 
Whig,  did  what  he  could ;  he  introduced  a  bill  in 
Congress,  the  object  of  which  was  to  put  an  end  to 
the  war  in  Kansas.  The  bill  proposed  a  fair  regis- 
tration of  actual  settlers,  under  United  States  su- 
pervision, to  be  followed  by  an  election,  which 
should  settle  the  question  at  issue.  Leading  Re- 
publicans conceded  that  the  proposition  was  fair 
and  honorable ;  but  Democrats  and  Republicans 
had  already  made  their  nominations  for  the  presi- 
dency, and  the  campaign  was  fully  inaugurated. 
The  atmosphere  was  charged  with  excitement  and 
partisan  bitterness.  An  agreement  in  Congress 
217 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

upon  an  equitable  method  for  adjusting  the  con- 
flicting interests  in  "  bleeding  Kansas  "  was  even 
then  quite  impossible. 

One  other  significant  event  occurred  in  Kansas 
at  the  opening  of  the  presidential  campaign.  Two 
days  after  the  assault  upon  Sumner  in  the  Senate 
chamber,  John  Brown  took  with  him  seven  men 
and  massacred,  in  the  dead  of  night,  five  proslavery 
settlers  in  Pottawatomie  Valley,  Kansas.  June  2 
the  convention  met  which  made  James  Buchanan 
Democratic  candidate  for  the  presidency,  and  a 
fortnight  later  that  which  nominated  John  C.  Fre"- 
mont  as  Republican  candidate.  One  would  nat- 
urally suppose  that  the  affair  of  Brown  and  his 
company  would  enter  into  the  campaign  as  a  make- 
weight against  the  typical  outrages  of  the  proslav- 
ery party.  But  almost  nothing  of  the  sort  occurred. 
Why  it  did  not  was  a  mystery  then,  and  remains 
a  mystery  still. 

The  entire  career  of  John  Brown  appears  to 
belong  to  Asiatic  mysticism  rather  than  to  Ameri- 
can politics.  He  came  to  Kansas  in  1855,  solely  to 
share  in  the  struggle  with  slavery.  With  his  men 
he  hastened  to  take  part  in  the  defence  of  Law- 
rence in  December  of  that  year,  and  when  the 
free  state  party  agreed  to  the  compromise,  Brown 
resented  it  with  utter  disgust.  He  was  on  his  way 
to  defend  the  town  once  more  when  he  heard  of 
its  destruction.  At  the  sack  of  Lawrence  no  one 
was  killed  save  one  of  the  attacking  party,  and 
he  purely  by  accident ;  but  on  the  approach  to  the 
218 


THE   WAR   IN   KANSAS 

town  two  or  three  free  state  men  had  been  shot, 
on  one  pretence  or  another.  John  Brown  reckoned 
the  account,  and  estimated  that  altogether,  since 
the  murder  of  Dow  the  year  before,  five  free  state 
men  had  been  slain  by  the  slave  power.  Not  a 
doubt  rested  on  his  mind  that  the  time  for  war  had 
come,  and  that  he  was  himself  commissioned  of  God 
to  execute  righteous  vengeance  upon  the  enemy. 
In  this  spirit  he  went  forth  to  do  justice :  "  An 
eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  life  for  life." 
The  only  assignable  reason  for  the  selection  of  the 
particular  persons  who  became  his  victims  was 
that  hostile  threats  had  emanated  from  that  quar- 
ter. But  it  seems  that  Brown  himself  did  not  as- 
sign this  as  a  reason.  He  had  merely  murdered 
five  of  the  enemy  taken  at  random,  because  five  of 
his  own  party  had  been  slain.  In  his  mind  there 
was  never  the  slightest  question  as  to  the  right- 
eousness of  his  acts  ;  they  were  not  the  result  of 
momentary  excitement,  and  remorse  did  not  follow 
on  reflection.  John  Brown  attended  a  prayer- 
meeting  in  Grinnell,  Iowa,  a  year  or  two  after  the 
massacre  of  Pottawatomie,  and  one  of  those  present 
invoked  the  divine  blessing  upon  his  enterprise, 
and  expressed  a  desire  that  he  might  be  forgiven 
if  he  had  in  the  past  done  anything  amiss.  The 
old  hero  got  up  and  protested.  He  said  that  for 
his  part  he  had  no  sins  to  confess ;  the  things  that 
he  had  done  were  right  things. 

It  is  probably  a  waste  of  time  to  strive  to  under- 
stand such  a  man  as  John  Brown  ;  but  by  accepting 
219 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

the  man  as  representing  a  type  of  unbalanced 
humanity,  to  be  treated  as  an  established  scientific 
fact,  we  are  placed  in  a  position  more  easily  to  un- 
derstand a  good  many  other  things.  If  he  were 
possessed  of  an  evil  spirit,  the  name  of  that  spirit 
ought  to  be  called  "  Civil  War."  As  the  soldiers 
of  the  Civil  War  marched  through  Georgia  to  the 
sea  they  sang  in  the  streets  of  the  cities :  "  John 
Brown's  body  lies  mouldering  in  the 'grave,  But  his 
soul  is  marching  on."  In  the  city  of  Savannah,  just 
after  the  military  occupation  by  federal  troops  early 
in  1865,  a  negro  school  was  opened  in  the  old  slave 
pens,  and  taught  by  a  former  slave.  I  chanced  to 
visit  the  school  when  some  Massachusetts  officers 
were  present,  and  one  of  them  expressed  a  desire 
to  hear  the  pupils  sing.  Instantly  the  teacher 
turned  and  said,  "  Now,  children,  rise  and  sing  one 
of  your  nice  Sunday  school  hymns."  They  arose 
in  perfect  order  and  began  :  "  John  Brown's  body 
lies  mouldering  in  the  grave,  But  his  soul  is  march- 
ing on." 

John  Brown  had  a  profound  and  honorable 
sympathy  with  the  negro  race,  but  he  was  a  victim 
of  extreme  hatred  of  oppression  and  the  oppressor. 
When  about  to  die  he  said  that  he  had  ever  ac- 
counted it  his  duty  to  remember  those  in  bonds 
as  bound  with  them.  With  the  introduction  of 
John  Brown  to  a  position  of  leadership  in  Kansas 
the  war  began  which  freed  the  slave. 


220 


CHAPTER   XV 

THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1856 

WHAT  should  be  done  for  "bleeding  Kansas" 
became  the  chief  issue  in  the  presidential  election 
of  1856.  Four  conventions  met  to  nominate  can- 
didates. That  of  the  Republicans  in  Philadelphia 
was  a  somewhat  irregular  body  composed  of  dele- 
gates elected  in  a  variety  of  ways  from  all  the  free 
states  and  from  three  of  the  slave  states.  But 
what  might  have  been  found  lacking  in  formality 
was  more  than  made  up  by  the  youthful  exuber- 
ance and  spontaneity  of  the  new  party,  meeting 
for  the  first  time  in  national  assembly  under  the 
inspiration  of  the  rapid  progress  and  wonderful 
success  of  the  enterprise  in  the  Northern  states. 

In  many  particulars  the  Philadelphia  convention 
resembled  the  Buffalo  convention  which  nominated 
Van  Buren  in  1848.  Both  gathered  together  a 
considerable  number  of  more  or  less  incongruous 
elements  united  by  a  general  dissatisfaction  with 
the  other  political  organizations  of  the  country, 
and  both  promulgated  their  views  respecting  slavery. 
The  Buffalo  gathering  gave  expression  in  general 
terms  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso ;  the 
Philadelphia  platform  was  definitely  set  forth  as 
221 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

the  utterance  of  those  opposed  to  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  to  the  extension  of  slavery 
into  the  territories,  and  to  the  refusal  to  admit 
Kansas  into  the  Union  as  a  free  state.  The  eight 
resolutions  adopted  by  the  Republicans  denied 
that  slavery  could  under  the  Constitution  be  made 
legal  in  any  federal  territory ;  proclaimed  the  sov- 
ereign power  of  Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  in 
the  territories;  demanded  the  wiping  out  of  the 
disgraceful  laws  that  were  being  forced  upon  the 
settlers  of  Kansas,  and  the  immediate  admission 
of  that  territory  to  the  Union  under  her  free 
constitution.  They  also  expressed  a  purpose  to 
guard  the  public  lands  for  the  benefit  of  actual 
residents,  favored  the  improvement  of  rivers  and 
harbors  through  federal  aid,  and  the  immediate 
construction  of  a  Pacific  railroad. 

The  new  party  could  look  for  no  support  in  the 
South  ;  its  only  hope  lay  in  the  possibility  of  carry- 
ing the  Northern  states  by  promoting  division  in 
the  Democratic  party.  Especial  efforts  were  made 
to  attract  dissatisfied  Democrats.  There  were 
multitudes  in  the  North  who  were  turning  in  utter 
disgust  from  the  policy  of  their  party  as  exemplified 
in  the  conduct  of  affairs  in  Kansas.  They  resented 
the  treatment  by  the  administration  of  their  own 
fellow-partisans  in  Kansas  —  men  who  had  voted  for 
Pierce,  but  who  had  become  free-soilers  through 
the  logic  of  events  and  conditions.  They  saw 
that  Democratic  governors  sent  out  to  represent 
the  administration  were  soon  impelled  to  break 

222 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF    1856 

with  the  government  at  Washington  and  espouse 
the  cause  of  the  free  state  party.  They  could  not 
countenance  the  forcing  of  slavery  upon  an  unwill- 
ing people  by  means  of  United  States  troops. 

The  young  party  had  no  tried  and  trusted  states- 
men of  its  own ;  it  must  choose  its  standard-bearers 
with  discretion,  lest  one  or  another  faction  of  its 
motley  following  should  be  repelled.  Fremont 
had  had  no  close  associations  with  any  political 
party.  As  the  son-in-law  of  Thomas  H.  Benton, 
the  noted  Democratic  statesman  of  Missouri  who 
was  known  to  have  decided  leaning  toward  free-soil 
principles,  he  commended  himself  to  certain  Demo- 
cratic elements  among  the  Republicans,  and,  with 
the  eager,  whole-hearted  trust  of  youth,  he  was 
accepted  by  the  entire  convention  and  nominated 
amid  great  enthusiasm  on  the  first  ballot. 

The  first  Republican  campaign  was  distin- 
guished for  its  liberal  use  of  political  literature. 
Never  before  had  the  printing-press  been  so  freely 
brought  into  service.  Tons  of  reading  matter 
were  distributed  through  the  country  and,  what  is 
more,  were  read.  A  large  proportion  of  this  lit- 
erature consisted  of  selections  from  the  antislav- 
ery  utterances  of  the  Revolutionary  fathers,  and 
especially  from  those  of  Jefferson. 

And  while  the  people  read  they  were  also  called 
upon  to  listen.  Immense  assemblages  of  voters 
sat  with  absorbed  attention  through  long  and 
stirring  addresses,  and  were  then  relieved  by  the 
appearance  of  a  variety  of  spectacular  and  amus- 
223 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

ing  devices.  Something  more  than  a  touch  of 
realism  gave  point  to  some  of  the  conceits. 
Masked  men  armed  to  the  teeth  would  suddenly 
spring  up  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd.  They 
would  enact  riot  and  devastation  and  murder, 
until  put  to  flight  by  an  improvised  "law  and 
order "  party.  Such  open-air  theatrical  perform- 
ances had  their  serious  purpose,  as  had  the  miracle 
plays  of  the  Middle  Ages.  They  cultivated  sym- 
pathy for  the  suffering  settlers  in  Kansas.  But 
appeals  to  the  more  frivolous  were  not  wanting. 
The  merry  music  of  brass  bands,  the  antics  of  the 
"  Fantastics,"  and  mirth-provoking  sports  of  every 
kind  lent  their  attractions  to  the  great  mass-meet- 
ings held  throughout  the  Northern  states.  Indeed, 
the  air  of  buoyancy  and  jollity  pervading  the 
Republican  campaign  recalled  the  joyous  days  of 
the  Whig  campaign  of  1840,  and  until  late  in  the 
season  the  omens  seemed  to  foreshadow  as  mar- 
vellous a  victory. 

The  Democratic  campaign  was  conducted  with 
conspicuous  ability.  Its  appeal  was  such  as  was 
possible  to  no  other  organization.  No  other  party 
represented  the  nation ;  no  other  was  strong  enough 
to  continue  to  bind  the  states  together  and  save 
the  Union  in  the  hour  of  danger.  At  the  head  of 
the  Democratic  ticket  stood  the  name  of  a  well- 
known  Northern  man,  a  man  of  years  and  of  ex- 
perience in  public  affairs,  a  man  of  moderate  and 
conservative  views  and  not  aggressively  committed 
on  the  burning  question  of  the  day.  The  party 
224 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF   1856 

platform  gave  strong  assurances  of  devotion  to  the 
principles  of  the  Compromise  of  1850,  and  to 
those  embodied  in  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act; 
while  it  also  called  attention  to  the  need  of  fed- 
eral attention  to  matters  of  foreign  policy. 

The  position  of  the  Democrats  in  the  canvass 
was  strengthened  by  the  candidacy  of  Millard 
Fillmore  for  the  American  or  Know-nothing 
party.  That  party  had  seemed  at  one  time  to 
have  secured  a  strong  hold  as  a  national  organiza- 
tion, and  its  disposition  to  place  stress  upon  the 
importance  of  preserving  the  Union  held  its  fol- 
lowers when  its  other  party  principles  had  sunk 
out  of  sight.  But  at  a  National  Council  held  in 
Philadelphia  in  June,  1855,  the  organization  became 
divided  along  sectional  lines  over  the  slavery  ques- 
tion. A  joint  convention  was  nevertheless  held 
by  the  two  wings  of  the  party  in  the  February 
following  to  nominate  presidential  candidates,  and 
the  convention  was  split  in  twain,  as  the  council 
had  been,  in  respect  to  slavery.  The  Northern 
members  having  withdrawn,  the  remainder  of  the 
convention  nominated  Millard  Fillmore  for  Presi- 
dent. Though  the  American  party  —  or  the 
Southern  fragment  which  followed  Fillmore  — 
made  a  canvass  upon  thoroughly  Union  principles, 
yet,  as  a  sectional  organization  and  a  feeble  one, 
it  commanded  little  influence.  Late  in  the  cam- 
paign a  remnant  of  the  Whig  party  met  in  Balti- 
more, adopted  the  Know-nothing  candidate  as 
their  own,  and  declared  for  the  Constitution,  the 
Q  225 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

Union,  and  the  recent  Compromises.  The  Whigs 
had  now  no  following  in  the  South,  and,  so  far  as 
they  can  be  called  a  party  at  all,  they  were,  like 
the  Republicans,  a  Northern  sectional  party.  Fill- 
more,  therefore,  was  by  a  curious  chain  of  circum- 
stances made  the  candidate  of  two  discordant  and 
inharmonious  fragmentary  sectional  parties,  one 
of  the  North,  one  of  the  South ;  the  two,  however, 
cordially  agreeing  upon  the  transcendent  impor- 
tance of  preserving  the  Union.  As  a  party,  the 
Know-nothing  party  South  professed  no  policy 
upon  the  slavery  question,  but  Fillmore,  as  a  candi- 
date of  Northern  Whigs,  favored  the  restoration  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise.  The  large  vote  which 
he  received  in  the  South  is  to  be  interpreted  as  a 
protest  against  the  doctrine  of  secession,  and  both 
in  the  North  and  the  South  a  vote  for  Fillmore 
must  be  regarded  as  a  protest  against  permitting 
the  government  of  the  country  to  pass  into  the 
hands  of  a  new  and  untried  party,  representing 
only  one  section  of  the  country  and  organized 
upon  a  sectional  issue.  All  this  played  into  the 
hands  of  the  Democrats.  The  only  practical  way 
to  prevent  the  election  of  Fr6mont  was  to  elect 
James  Buchanan.  And  this  the  conservative  ele- 
ments in  the  country  were  persuaded  to  do. 

It  was  the  conservative  vote  of  Pennsylvania 
and  a  few  other  Northern  states  which  determined 
the  election.  All  the  slave  states  except  Maryland 
were  virtually  conceded  to  the  Democrats  before 
the  polling  took  place,  but  the  contest  was  waged 

226 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF    1856 

to  the   bitter  end  in   the  doubtful  states  of  the 
North. 

During  the  closing  weeks  of  the  campaign  the 
state  of  affairs  in  Kansas  greatly  improved.  From 
May  until  August  a  sort  of  bushwhacking  warfare 
had  disgraced  the  soil,  under  the  leadership  of  the 
most  disreputable  factions  in  the  two  parties.  Gov- 
ernor Robinson,  the  wisest  of  the  free  state  lead- 
ers, was  all  that  time  a  prisoner,  and  John  Brown 
and  "  Jim  "  Lane  were  in  the  ascendant.  But  the 
disturbances  in  Kansas  redounded  to  the  detriment 
of  Democratic  prospects,  and  the  party  chiefs  were 
at  last  convinced  that  their  Kansas  policy  must  be 
modified  if  any  hope  was  to  remain  to  them  of 
winning  the  election  in  November.  Under  this 
impression  the  administration  removed  Governor 
Shannon  and  other  officials  of  unsavory  records, 
and  commissioned  Colonel  Geary  of  Pennsylvania 
to  proceed  to  the  turbulent  territory  for  the  pur- 
pose of  restoring  and  preserving  order.  The  new 
governor,  backed  by  the  United  States  army, 
quickly  disbanded  all  the  partisan  forces  con- 
trolled by  the  hostile  factions,  and  organized  a 
militia  under  his  own  control  strong  enough  to 
overpower  the  disorderly  elements.  Ere  long 
Governor  Geary  found,  as  Governor  Reeder  had 
found  before  him,  that  it  was  the  proslavery  party 
which  opposed  him,  while  the  free  state  party 
were  his  supporters.  The  excitement  quieted 
down,  Robinson  was  released  from  prison,  Brown 
and  Lane  left  the  territory,  and  the  peaceful  set- 
227 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

tiers  of  all  parties  loyally  upheld  Governor  Geary. 
Northern  immigration  continued  to  pour  in,  and 
before  the  day  of  the  presidential  election  the 
impression  had  in  some  way  become  widespread 
that  their  enemies  had  given  up  the  fight  and 
Kansas  was  to  be  admitted  as  a  free  state.  Men 
who  held  the  closest  confidential  relations  with 
Buchanan  urged  antislavery  voters  to  cast  their 
ballots  for  the  Democratic  candidate  as  the  surest 
way  to  secure  freedom  to  Kansas  and  the  deliver- 
ance of  the  Union  from  threatened  dismember- 
ment. 

The  result  justified  the  arguments  and  the 
methods  of  the  Democratic  party.  Conservative 
antislavery  voters  in  many  instances  shrank  at  the 
last  from  casting  their  votes  for  the  young  and  un- 
tried adventurer,  backed  by  the  new  sectional  party 
of  uncertain  future.  Doubt  and  fear  and  dread  of 
what  the  years  to  come  might  bring,  all  made  votes 
for  Buchanan.  The  old,  historic  national  party, 
with  its  old,  steady-going  candidate,  won  the  day. 
Besides  the  112  electoral  votes  from  the  South, 
Buchanan  received  62  votes  from  the  free  states. 
The  popular  vote  was  less  decisive,  giving 
Buchanan  less  than  500,000  over  Fremont,  while 
Fremont  had  nearly  that  majority  over  Fillmore. 


228 


CHAPTER   XVI 
THE  DRED  SCOTT  DECISION 

GOVERNOR  GEARY  held  his  position  in  Kansas 
until  the  4th  of  March,  1857,  winning  more  and 
more  the  confidence  and  the  support  of  the  free 
state  settlers  and,  indeed,  of  all  classes  save  those 
who  had  determined  that  Kansas  should  at  all 
hazards  be  made  a  slave  state.  The  way  was  now 
clear  for  the  new  administration  at  Washington  to 
acknowledge  established  and  undeniable  facts  in 
Kansas  and  give  the  country  rest  from  the  long 
sectional  strife.  Quite  possibly  that  is  what  would 
have  taken  place  had  not  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  suddenly  vaulted  into  the  arena 
of  party  politics,  with  the  promulgation  of  the 
famous  Dred  Scott  decision. 

At  the  time  of  President  Buchanan's  inaugura- 
tion the  Supreme  Court  commanded  more  general 
and  more  profound  respect  than  at  any  later  time. 
It  was  then  especially  esteemed  by  the  adherents 
of  the  Union  and  the  devotees  of  the  central  gov- 
ernment, as  the  final  arbiter  in  any  case  of  conflict 
between  state  and  federal  government.  Such 
authority  had  never  been  conceded  by  the  extreme 
partisans  of  states'  rights,  who  had  always  main- 
229 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

tained  that  the  states  were  themselves  the  final 
judges  as  to  infractions  of  the  Constitution  which 
threatened  their  essential  rights.  In  a  sense,  then, 
the  Court  may  be  said  to  have  always  been  con- 
cerned in  party  politics,  since  a  fundamental  party 
doctrine  involved  peculiar  views  as  to  the  position 
and  powers  of  the  federal  judiciary.  Still,  judi- 
cial decisions  had  thus  far  been  remarkably  free 
from  any  partisan  bias,  and  one  may  note  with 
surprise  how  very  little  partisan  criticism  had  at 
any  time  been  directed  against  the  Court  itself. 

Von  Hoist  is  convinced  that  the  slavocracy  formed 
and  carried  out  a  systematic  plan  to  gain  the  ascen- 
dency in  the  Supreme  Court.  The  plan  is  dated 
from  the  controversy  over  nullification  in  South 
Carolina,  and  its  execution  began  in  the  year  1837, 
when  a  disproportionate  number  of  circuits  was 
assigned  to  the  South,  and  was  continued  during 
the  years  following,  in  which,  through  the  control 
of  the  Judiciary  Committee  of  the  Senate,  judges 
were  secured  whose  opinions  on  the  slavery  ques- 
tion harmonized  with  those  of  the  slavocracy. 
However  this  may  be,  at  the  time  of  the  deci- 
sion in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  five  of  the  judges 
were  Southern  Democrats,  two  were  Northern 
Democrats,  and  there  were  one  Republican  and 
one  Whig  from  Northern  states.  One  Northern 
Democrat  united  with  the  Chief  Justice  and  all 
the  Southern  justices  in  the  so-called  decision  that 
the  owners  of  slave  property  had  indefeasible 
rights  in  the  territories.  The  remaining  Northern 

230 


THE   DRED   SCOTT   DECISION 

Democrat  joined  with  the  majority,  so  far  as  the 
real  decision  went  that  Scott  had  no  standing  in 
the  Court.  The  Whig  and  the  Republican  justices 
filed  strongly  dissenting  opinions. 

It  is  assumed  here  that  the  facts  in  the  Dred 
Scott  case  are  familiar.  I  have  to  do  only  with  its 
effects  on  party  politics.  According  to  the  deci- 
sion the  new  Republican  party  was  laboring  to 
accomplish  an  unconstitutional  purpose ;  it  was 
striving  to  restore  the  Missouri  Compromise  and 
to  use  the  power  of  the  federal  government  to 
prevent  the  introduction  of  slavery  into  the  terri- 
tories. The  formal  declaration  of  the  opinion  of 
the  majority  of  the  Court  that  this  effort  was  a 
violation  of  the  Constitution  was  really  a  direct 
attempt  to  suppress  by  judicial  procedure  a  great 
political  party  which  commanded  sufficient  follow- 
ing almost  to  elect  a  President.  That  portion  of 
the  decision  was,  moreover,  quite  extraneous  to 
the  matter  in  question.  The  Court  had  months 
before  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the  negro 
who  had  sued  for  his  freedom  had  no  standing  in 
the  federal  courts.  The  principal  question,  and 
in  the  opinion  of  the  dissenting  judges  the  only 
question,  that  of  jurisdiction,  was  settled,  and  the 
Court  had  nothing  further  to  decide.  When  it 
went  out  of  its  way  to  discuss  and  decide  a  vexed 
political  question  which  was  at  the  very  moment 
the  chief  matter  in  controversy  between  the  two 
great  political  parties,  it  vacated  its  high  office 
and  entered  the  field  of  partisan  contention. 
231 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

The  Supreme  Court  pronounced  a  decision 
against  the  Republican  party.  More  than  that,  it 
pronounced  against  the  uniform  policy  of  all  the 
parties  up  to  the  very  date  of  its  rendering.  Only 
two  years  before,  Congress  had  passed  a  law 
which,  as  interpreted  by  its  author,  gave  to  the 
people  of  a  territory  the  right  to  exclude  slavery. 
The  opinion  of  the  Democratic  Supreme  Court 
made  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  of  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  unconstitutional,  and  that  adroit  Demo- 
cratic politician  found  his  skill  in  sophistry  taxed 
to  the  utmost  to  uphold  the  position  of  the  Court 
and  at  the  same  time  defend  the  validity  of  his 
cherished  principle  of  "  Squatter  Sovereignty." 

The  Dred  Scott  decision  also  controverted  the 
policy  of  the  makers  of  the  Constitution  them- 
selves, as  exemplified  in  the  Ordinance  of  1787, 
and  undermined  the  principles  which  had  sup- 
ported the  government  from  its  inception  to  the 
day  of  the  deliverance  of  the  partisan  opinion. 
It  was  based  upon  an  idea  which  had  originated 
scarcely  ten  years  before,  in  the  fertile  brain  of  the 
South  Carolina  statesman,  John  C.  Calhoun,  not 
long  before  his  death,  —  an  idea  advanced  by  a 
dying  man  in  a  last  desperate  effort  to  save  his 
beloved  South  from  impending  ruin.  And  the 
momentous  judicial  paper  was  penned  by  a  dying 
man  over  eighty  years  of  age.  Who  dares  to  say 
that  only  the  young  give  birth  to  new  ideas  ? 

In  the  very  nature  of  the  case  the  Democratic 
party  was  disposed  to  make  much  capital  out  of 
232 


THE   DRED   SCOTT   DECISION 

the  Dred  Scott  decision.  It  is  not  in  human 
nature  for  the  members  in  one  political  party  to 
find  their  opponents  ruled  out  of  existence  by  so 
influential  a  body  as  the  Supreme  Court  and  not 
try  to  make  party  capital  out  of  it.  By  simply 
sustaining  the  opinion  of  the  Court  the  Democrats 
consigned  the  Republicans  to  limbo.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  was  nothing  left  for  the  Republicans 
to  do  but  to  attack  the  Court  and  appeal  to  the 
country  against  its  partisan  conduct. 

It  promised  to  be  an  unequal  combat.  Great 
were  the  power  and  prestige  of  the  ancient  and 
honored  party.  Upon  it  rested  the  glamour  of  a 
great  historic  past.  Parties  had  risen,  waxed,  and 
waned,  and  died.  Only  that  which  claimed  of  orig- 
inal right  direct  and  unbroken  descent  from  the 
great  father  of  Democracy  held  on,  despite  fortune's 
vicissitudes,  through  evil  report  and  good  report, 
without  break  or  eclipse,  from  the  days  of  the  pre- 
vious century  till  now.  No  other  political  organi- 
zation could  now  assert  a  truly  national  scope.  The 
Democratic  party  continued  to  possess  the  whole 
land,  ramifying  into  all  the  minutest  channels  of 
political  influence.  All  other  similar  bodies  were 
by  contrast  but  fragmentary  and  narrow.  Social 
and  family  tradition  held  men  to  the  venerable 
organ  through  which  their  ancestors  and  friends 
had  for  generations  impressed  themselves  upon  the 
national  policy.  There  were  regions  where 'to  be 
other  than  a  Democrat  was  to  be  a  social  pariah.  It 
was  not  good  form  to  seek  other  political  affiliations. 

233 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

But  to  be  a  Democrat  was  not  by  any  means  to 
be  a  believer  in  slavery.  Until  the  time  of  the 
war  with  Mexico  nothing  had  occurred  to  oblige 
the  Northern  Democrat  to  decide  whether  or  not 
he  believed  in  the  institution,  and  when  the  ques- 
tion was  first  raised,  Northern  Democrats  nearly  all 
took  the  antislavery  side.  It  was  only  gradually 
and  by  a  series  of  political  accidents,  as  it  were, 
that  the  party,  as  such,  was  carried  over  to  the 
other  side,  and  no  national  body  remained  to  up- 
hold the  antislavery  view.  It  was  their  unlucky 
fate  that,  through  the  urgency  of  party  difficulties, 
the  Democrats  were  led  to  become  apologists  for 
slavery  at  the  very  time  when,  more  than  ever 
before,  the  spirit  of  the  age  was  against  it.  Many 
of  them  were  too  deeply  imbued  with  the  humani- 
tarian sentiment  of  the  time  or  with  the  moral  and 
religious  objections  to  the  enslaving  of  human 
beings,  to  give  more  than  a  perfunctory  and 
tentative  countenance  to  the  party  championship 
of  the  peculiar  institution.  They  were  able  to 
delude  themselves  into  the  belief  that  they  accepted 
it  because  their  party  so  decreed.  Looking  with 
the  eye  of  partisan  faith  to  those  distant  states 
where  slavery  had  become  intrenched  along  with 
the  plantation  system  and  that  charming  and 
gracious  hospitality  for  which  the  South  was 
famous,  they  saw  nothing  which  should  lead  them 
to  antagonize  the  policy  adopted  by  the  trusted 
party  leaders. 

So  it  came  about  that,  as  members  of  the  Demo- 
234 


THE   DRED   SCOTT   DECISION 

cratic  party,  a  multitude  of  men  supported  slavery, 
while  as  rational  human  beings  they  repudiated  it  ; 
and  those  who  actually  came  to  close  quarters  with 
it  and  were  forced  to  practical  action  in  respect 
to  it,  did  in  many  cases  cease  to  sustain  the  attitude 
of  their  party.  Thus  it  was  with  Governor  Reeder 
in  Kansas,  as  we  have  seen.  As  a  good  Demo- 
crat he  supposed  himself  as  ready  to  deal  in  slaves 
as  in  cattle;  but  in  the  face  of  the  executive  respon- 
sibilities of  his  position  as  governor  of  the  debatable 
land,  the  honest  convictions  of  a  sincere  and  honest 
man  proved  more  influential  than  party  ties. 

The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred 
Scott  case  threw  around  the  views  of  slavery 
adopted  by  the  great  old  party  the  halo  of  sanctity, 
as  having  received  the  benediction  of  the  highest 
tribunal  in  the  land.  Nothing  of  endorsement 
was  now  lacking  to  the  partisan  proslavery  doc- 
trine of  the  Democratic  party.  Professed  belief 
in  slavery  had  become  fashionable  throughout  the 
South  and  with  half  the  people  of  the  North. 
This  state  of  public  sentiment  naturally  gave  rise 
to  an  intense  desire  on  the  part  of  those  not  swept 
into  the  proslavery  current  for  a  more  direct,  em- 
phatic expression  of  the  contradictory  conviction 
that  slavery  was  a  great  moral  wrong.  And  these 
conditions  determined  the  conduct  of  two  American 
citizens  whose  characters  and  positions  were  such 
as  enabled  them  to  give,  each  in  his  day,  direction 
in  a  critical  emergency  to  the  policy  of  the  nation. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  James  Buchanan 

235 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

entered  upon  the  occupancy  of  his  position  of 
supreme  authority  with  the  full  intention  of  accept- 
ing the  situation  in  Kansas,  recognizing  the  pre- 
dominant free-soil  sentiment  and  admitting  the 
territory  as  a  free  state,  thus  putting  an  end  to  the 
threats  of  civil  war.  Immediately  after  his  inaugu- 
ration the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  made  public, 
and  the  partisan  attitude  of  the  Supreme  Court 
led  the  President,  after  a  few  months,  to  a  reversal 
of  purpose.  Henceforth  his  whole  personal  and 
official  power  and  influence  were  used  to  force 
upon  Kansas  that  institution  which  her  people 
hated. 

At  the  same  time  a  citizen  of  a  different  type 
was  deeply  pondering  the  national  situation  and 
forecasting  his  country's  destiny.  Abraham  Lin- 
coln was  slowly  reaching  the  conclusion  that  the 
United  States  was  approaching  a  momentous  crisis 
in  the  conflict  between  two  contradictory  and  irrec- 
oncilable forces ;  he  was  maturing  a  deliberate 
judgment  that  the  hour  was  at  hand  when  the 
partisan  affirmation  of  the  righteousness  of  slavery 
should  be  met  by  direct  denial,  and  that  full  and 
ample  expression  should  be  given  to  the  opposing 
conviction  of  the  moral  wrong  of  slavery. 

One  of  the  early  acts  of  the  Buchanan  adminis- 
tration was  the  selection  of  the  fourth  governor  for 
Kansas.  For  this  important  mission  the  President 
chose  Robert  J.  Walker,  a  Mississippi  Democrat 
of  national  reputation.  Mr.  Walker  was  a  man  of 
conspicuous  ability,  who  had  been  a  leading  mem- 

236 


THE   DRED   SCOTT  DECISION 

her  of  Folk's  cabinet.  He  was  induced  to  accept 
the  inferior  mission  to  Kansas  by  a  high  sense  of 
duty.  F.  P.  Stanton  of  Tennessee  assisted  him  as 
territorial  secretary.  Thus  the  affairs  of  Kansas 
were  placed  in  the  hands  of  two  Southern  Demo- 
crats of  high  standing.  Mr.  Walker  arrived  in 
Kansas  late  in  May,  1857.  Already  June  15  had 
been  fixed  as  the  day  when  the  people  of  Kansas 
should  choose  delegates  to  a  constitutional  conven- 
tion to  meet  at  Lecompton.  The  new  governor 
urged  all  classes  to  take  part  in  the  election.  The 
free  state  men,  however,  stood  aloof,  and  the  con- 
vention was  made  up  from  the  proslavery  party. 

Governor  Walker  was  fully  convinced  that  Kan- 
sas could  not  be  made  a  slave  state.  He  was,  how- 
ever, of  the  opinion  that  it  could  be  made  into  a 
free  state  which  could  be  controlled  by  the  Demo- 
cratic party.  It  was  estimated  that  there  were 
in  the  territory  nine  thousand  free-soil  Democrats 
against  eight  thousand  Republicans.  If  the 
Democrats  could  be  strengthened  by  the  several 
thousand  proslavery  men  in  the  territory,  there 
would  be  a  safe  Democratic  majority.  The  new 
governor  early  won  the  confidence  of  all  classes. 
He  induced  the  free  state  party  to  give  up  their 
irregular  Topeka  government  and  to  take  part  in 
a  regular  election  for  the  selection  of  members  of  a 
territorial  legislature  ;  .and  in  October,  1857,  for 
the  first  time  a  peaceful  election  was  held  in  which 
all  participated.  In  only  two  districts  were  there 
charges  of  serious  fraud.  The  result  was  the  elec- 
237 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

tion  of  a  legislature  with  a  large  majority  of  free 
state  members.  Thus,  in  the  hands  of  South- 
ern Democrats  Kansas  became  subject  to  a  free- 
soil  legislature.  In  the  meantime  the  proslavery 
convention  which  had  been  chosen  in  June  had  met 
in  September  and  was  at  work  on  a  constitution. 
It  was  assumed  that,  whatever  the  Lecompton 
convention  should  do,  its  results  would  be  sub- 
mitted to  a  vote  of  the  people,  and  then,  of  course, 
only  a  free  state  constitution  could  be  ratified. 
But  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
in  Washington,  a  plot  was  slowly  matured  to  use 
the  Lecompton  convention  to  frame  a  proslavery 
constitution  which,  without  having  been  submitted 
to  a  vote  of  the  people,  should  be  presented  to 
Congress.  The  Democratic  majorities  in  the  two 
Houses  and  the  Democratic  President  were  then 
to  be  depended  upon  to  make  Kansas  a  slave  state 
in  spite  of  the  overwhelming  free  state  sentiment 
of  the  people.  Of  course  such  a  plan  was  absurd 
unless  the  hearty  cooperation  of  the  President 
could  be  secured.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  Presi- 
dent Buchanan  was  actually  won  over,  and  for 
months  he  used  every  power  and  all  the  influence  at 
his  disposal  to  force  a  proslavery  constitution  upon 
Kansas  in  direct  violation  of  every  principle  of 
popular  government.  It  seems  utterly  impossible 
that  such  a  thing  could  have  happened  had  it 
not  been  for  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
The  President  was  not  proof  against  the  subtle 
logic  of  Calhoun,  when  presented  with  the  skilful 
238 


THE   DRED   SCOTT   DECISION 

sophistry  of  Chief  Justice  Taney,  backed  by  the 
Supreme  Court  majority.  His  original  sincere 
purpose  to  deal  fairly  with  the  Kansas  settlers, 
in  pursuance  of  which  he  had  sent  out  upright, 
honest,  and  able  territorial  officers,  seems  to  have 
given  place  to  an  intensely  partisan,  proslavery 
spirit.  In  adopting  the  plot  for  forcing  the  Le- 
compton  constitution  upon  Kansas,  Buchanan  was 
obliged  to  betray  Governor  Walker  and  to  with- 
draw the  support  of  the  administration  from  his 
wise  and  successful  policy.  He  was  also  forced 
to  repudiate  his  own  oft-repeated  promises  to  sub- 
mit the  constitution  to  the  popular  vote.  In  the 
light  of  the  remarkable  judicial  opinion  of  the 
Democratic  justices,  it  seemed  to  him  an  outrage 
upon  the  rights  of  the  less  than  one  hundred 
slaveholders  in  the  territory  that  the  will  of  the 
majority  of  the  thirty  thousand  settlers  who  did 
not  own  slaves  should  be  allowed  to  prevail. 
Since  by  the  ruling  of  the  Court  Kansas  had 
always  been  open  to  slavery,  slave  soil  he  now 
determined  it  should  remain.  The  right  claimed 
by  all  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  actual  settlers 
to  protect  themselves  under  the  law  of  1854  from 
competition  with  slave  labor,  went  down  before 
the  demand  of  a  mere  handful  of  slave-owners 
that  the  federal  government  should  maintain  for 
them  in  Kansas  their  hold  upon  that  slippery 
property. 


239 


CHAPTER   XVII 

FREE-SOIL  VICTORY   IN  THE  TERRITORIES   UNDER 
THE   LEADERSHIP  OF  DOUGLAS 

HAD  all  Democrats  been  of  the  Buchanan  type, 
the  Lecompton  iniquity  would  have  secured  the 
sanction  of  Congress.  But  it  happened  that 
there  were  dissenters  in  Congress,  and  the  most 
conspicuous  of  them  was  the  author  of  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill.  Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  himself 
too  great  a  master  of  the  art  of  sophistry  to  be 
easily  made  a  victim  of  its  wiles.  He  was  quite 
willing  that  the  Supreme  Court  should  legislate 
the  Republican  party  out  of  existence,  but  he  was 
not  willing  that  it  should  exterminate  him.  He 
had  staked  his  political  career  upon  the  principle 
of  popular  sovereignty  in  the  territories,  and  with 
all  his  might  he  threw  himself  against  the  Le- 
compton plot.  He  defied  the  administration ;  he 
defied  his  party.  In  his  own  party  he  had  at 
first  scant  support.  All  the  patronage  of  the 
administration  was  turned  against  him  in  the  most 
spiteful  manner.  Every  Democratic  Congress- 
man was  made  to  feel  that,  unless  he  supported 
the  President  in  the  ratification  of  the  Lecompton 
constitution,  his  friends  would  be  dismissed  from 
240 


FREE-SOIL  VICTORY 

office  and  their  places  filled  by  Democrats  who 
indorsed  the  decision  of  the  Court.  Douglas's 
influence  in  the  Senate  was  not  great  enough  to 
prevent  the  approval  of  the  Lecompton  constitu- 
tion. All  the  Republicans,  of  course,  came  to  his 
support.  The  virulence  of  the  fight  was  between 
the  Douglas  Democrats  and  the  official  Democracy. 
In  the  Senate,  patronage  and  official  influence  pre- 
vailed over  all  opposition. 

To  enable  Democrats  of  the  Buchanan  following 
to  adjust  their  consciences  to  the  support  of  the 
Lecompton  plot,  an  election  was  provided  in  Kan- 
sas. The  constitution  was  voted  upon,  but  no  one 
was  permitted  to  vote  against  it.  The  text  of  the 
document  embodied  in  the  most  explicit  terms  the 
rulings  of  the  Supreme  Court  as  to  the  sacredness 
of  the  right  of  property  in  slaves.  This  right  it 
pronounced  to  be  "before  and  higher  than  any 
constitutional  sanction."  The  constitution  also  pro- 
vided that  it  should  not  be  amended  before  the 
year  1864,  and  then  no  change  should  be  made 
"to  affect  the  rights  of  property  in  the  ownership 
of  slaves."  Now,  the  free  state  man,  if  he  voted 
at  all,  was  obliged  to  vote  for  this  constitution. 
He  might,  however,  if  he  chose,  have  on  his  ballot 
the  words  "  for  the  constitution  without  slavery." 
As  to  just  what  would  be  the  legal  effect  of  the 
adoption  of  such  a  constitution,  even  though  a 
majority  of  the  ballots  had  contained  the  words 
"  without  slavery,"  no  layman  could  tell.  The  final 
settlement  of  such  a  question  would  rest  with  the 
R  241 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

Supreme  Court,  and  just  at  that  time  the  free  state 
settlers  in  Kansas  did  not  trust  the  Court.  Gov- 
ernor Walker  denounced  the  form  of  submission 
as  "  a  vile  fraud,  a  base  counterfeit,"  a  device  to 
prevent  the  people  from  voting.  The  people 
acted  as  the  governor  assumed  that  they  would 
act.  Only  the  proslavery  minority  voted  at  the 
election. 

Douglas  and  the  Democrats  in  Congress  who 
acted  with  him  agreed  with  Governor  Walker  as 
to  this  submission  of  the  Lecompton  constitution 
to  the  people.  As  a  member  of  the  committee  in 
the  Senate  to  whom  the  constitution  was  referred, 
he  presented  a  minority  report  which  alleged  that 
the  constitution  was  not  an  act  of  the  people  of 
Kansas ;  that  by  a  system  of  trickery  in  the  mode 
of  submission  four-fifths  of  the  legal  voters  of 
Kansas  were  probably  disfranchised  and  excluded 
from  the  polls.  Senator  Crittenden  of  Kentucky 
sided  with  Douglas  and  offered  an  amendment  to 
the  bill  providing  that  the  constitution  should  be 
again  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people  of  Kansas, 
and  that,  if  a  majority  then  voted  to  accept  the 
constitution,  the  President  should  admit  the  state 
by  proclamation.  If  a  majority  should  vote  against 
the  constitution,  then  the  people  of  Kansas  were  to 
be  authorized  to  form  a  constitution  and  a  state 
government  such  as  the  majority  approved.  In 
the  Senate  this  amendment  was  rejected,  but  a 
similar  amendment  was  restored  to  the  bill  before 
the  measure  passed  the  House.  The  Senate,  how- 

242 


FREE-SOIL  VICTORY 

ever,  still  refused  to  accede  to  the  amendment  until 
it  was  so  modified  as  to  leave  Kansas  without  any 
hope  of  settled  government  in  case  the  constitu- 
tion was  not  approved.  Furthermore,  the  Senate 
amendment  included  a  provision  that,  when  the 
people  of  Kansas  should  vote  to  adopt  the  Lecomp- 
ton  constitution,  they  should  thereby  secure  for  the 
state  a  large  grant  of  public  lands.  With  this 
bribe  as  a  "  flyer  "  the  act  passed  the  two  Houses 
of  Congress,  and  once  more  the  people  of  Kansas 
expressed  their  wishes  at  the  polls.  In  August, 
1858,  11,300  out  of  a  total  vote  of  13,088  pro- 
nounced against  the  Lecompton  constitution,  even 
when  sugar-coated  with  the  land  gratuity. 

With  this  decisive  expression  of  popular  opinion 
the  long  contest  in  Kansas  came  virtually  to  an 
end.  The  stubborn  administration  majority  in  Con- 
gress continued  to  refuse  the  territory  admission, 
and  it  was  not  until  that  majority  was  lost  by  the 
withdrawal  of  members  from  seceding  states  that 
statehood  was  finally  granted,  in  January,  1861. 
But  the  act  which  admitted  the  state  of  Kansas 
with  a  i  onstitution  prohibiting  slavery  was  after  all 
signed  by  James  Buchanan. 

It  should  not  be  overlooked  that  the  great  battle 
for  freedom  in  Kansas  was  won  at  the  last,  not  by 
abolitionists,  not  by  Republicans,  but  by  Southern 
and  Northern  Democrats,  who,  moved  by  a  sense 
of  right  and  justice,  threw  themselves  against  the 
official  policy  of  their  powerful  party  leaders.  In 
uniting  Democrats  and  Republicans  in  the  support 
243 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

of  a  free  state  policy  no  one  was  so  influential  as 
the  Democratic  governor  from  the  state  of  Missis- 
sippi. 

Note  once  more  the  deplorable  fact  that  at  this 
important  moment  no  political  organ  of  national 
scope  existed  which  was  fitted  to  give  effect  to  the 
genuine,  fair-minded,  honest,  and  liberal  sentiment 
in  the  South.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that,  with  ade- 
quate means  of  expression  and  with  the  oppor- 
tunities for  cultivation  and  extension  furnished  by 
the  associations  of  a  great  political  party,  that  sen- 
timent might  have  been  made  a  link  in  a  chain  of 
ever  growing  strength  binding  the  sections  together, 
till  no  question  of  slavery,  no  other  question  of  gov- 
ernmental action,  could  for  a  moment  have  seriously 
endangered  the  Union.  After  eight  years  of  agita- 
tion, free  labor  had  triumphed,  but  no  national  party 
appeared  to  champion  its  cause. 

After  all  the  turmoil,  the  suffering  and  bloodshed, 
the  position  of  slavery  was  precisely  what  it  was 
before.  In  spite  of  all  the  frantic  labors  of  the  ad- 
vocates of  slavery,  aided  by  the  whole  force  of  the 
federal  administration  backed  by  the  Supreme 
Court,  not  an  inch  of  slave  territory  had  been  added, 
while  the  new  free  state  of  Minnesota  had  come  in. 
Slavery  had  indeed  been  nominally  legalized  in 
the  whole  territorial  domain,  from  which  it  was 
excluded  before  the  Compromise  of  1850;  but  it 
was  now  clear  to  every  unprejudiced  student  of 
the  situation  that  into  that  domain  slavery  could 
never  be  made  to  go.  In  the  height  of  the  Kansas 
244 


FREE-SOIL  VICTORY 

quarrel  a  legislature  was  gotten  together  in  New 
Mexico  which  proceeded  to  pass  laws  giving  for- 
mal legal  sanction  to  the  ownership  of  slave  prop- 
erty. There  was  no  disturbance,  no  discussion. 
The  slaveholder  was  made  entirely  free  to  enjoy 
all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  his  possessions 
throughout  the  territory.  As  a  result,  it  is  said 
that  at  one  time  as  many  as  twenty-two  slaves 
had  been  brought  within  the  boundary  lines.  But 
the  people  were  not  alarmed.  They  knew  that  the 
new  laws  were  a  mere  pretence,  and  there  was  no 
danger  of  an  invasion  of  slavery.  New  Mexico 
was  free  by  a  law  higher  even  than  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  The  same  Congress 
which  voted  the  admission  of  Kansas  organized 
territorial  government  in  Nevada,  Colorado,  and 
Dakota,  and  the  acts  made  no  mention  whatever 
of  the  subject  of  slavery.  After  the  lesson  taught 
by  the  Kansas  experience,  it  would  have  been 
ridiculous  indeed  to  pass  a  law  excluding  slavery 
from  Colorado. 

Douglas  had  made  bitter  enemies  in  the  admin- 
istration wing  of  his  party  by  his  powerful  opposi- 
tion to  their  darling  scheme.  The  whole  force  of 
government  patronage  was  brought  into  play  to 
crush  the  recalcitrant  leader ;  but  as  time  passed 
it  appeared  that,  in  spite  of  all,  Douglas  was  gath- 
ering to  himself  the  real  strength  of  the  party,  not 
only  in  the  North,  but  in  the  South  as  well.  His 
popular  sovereignty  doctrine  was  truly  popular 
with  the  Democrats,  and  drew  to  its  author's  side 

245 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

many  Republicans  also,  while  the  true  manliness 
and  courage  with  which  he  defended  the  applica- 
tion of  the  principle  in  Kansas  made  him  more 
than  ever  the  idol  of  his  party  in  his  own  state  of 
Illinois,  and  gave  him  friends  in  every  part  of  the 
country. 


246 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AS  A  TYPICAL  DEMOCRAT 

SINCE  Douglas  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
actual  leader  of  the  free-soil  forces  in  Congress 
during  the  early  months  of  1858,  it  is  not  strange 
that  a  widespread  expectation  should  arise  that  he 
would  be  accepted  as  their  nominal  leader  as  well. 
This  expectation  was  brought  to  naught  by  the 
conduct  of  a  man  whose  personal  relations  to 
national  policy  are  such  as  to  entitle  him  to  the 
special  attention  of  every  student  of  the  period 
covered  by  his  life. 

Abraham  Lincoln  stands  among  the  great  men 
of  the  century,  because  his  life  illustrates  and  he 
himself  is  made  the  embodiment  of  a  transcendent 
principle.  Being  himself  of  the  common  people, 
as  such  he  lived  and  died.  With  the  common 
people  were  his  sympathies,  as  well  when  he  filled 
the  highest  place  in  the  nation's  gift  as  when  he 
ate  his  daily  bread  and  wrought  his  daily  toil,  an 
undistinguished  unit  of  the  great  multitudes ;  and 
never  for  one  moment  did  he  view  any  question 
from  any  other  standpoint  than  that  of  the  ordinary 
simple  man  of  the  people.  In  politics  he  was  a 
Whig  while  the  Whig  party  endured,  and  was  inter- 
ested in  the  questions  which  interested  other  Whigs. 
247 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

Party  loyalty  led  him  to  accept  the  Compromise  of 
1850,  Fugitive  Slave  Act  and  all,  and  to  believe 
that  the  North  ought  in  good  faith  to  carry  out  the 
whole.  Lincoln  was  stirred  as  were  other  men  by 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  when 
in  his  own  state  a  meeting  of  delegates  was  held 
which  resulted  in  the  organization  of  the  Republi- 
can party,  he  surpassed  all  others  in  giving  effective 
utterance  to  the  common  feeling.  It  cannot  be 
said  of  Lincoln,  as  of  many  famous  men,  that  he 
lived  far  in  advance  of  his  age.  He  lived  in  and 
for  his  own  time,  and  in  a  very  special  sense  he 
was  of  his  own  time  and  not  in  advance  of  it. 
James  G.  Birney,  a  leading  abolitionist  and  a  former 
slaveholder,  began  as  early  as  1840  to  warn  his 
fellow-citizens  of  the  impending  bloody  conflict 
between  slavery  and  freedom,  should  the  country 
fail  to  rouse  itself,  take  up  the  matter  in  earnest, 
and  settle  it  peaceably.  But  so  far  as  we  are 
informed  no  such  idea  entered  Lincoln's  head 
until  just  as  it  was  about  to  enter  some  millions  of 
other  American  heads.  It  became  common  prop- 
erty as  the  war  in  Kansas  and  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  forced  the  nation  to  enter  upon  a  course 
of  serious  thinking.  Lincoln  was  by  that  time  a 
quicker  and  better  thinker  than  the  mass  of  men. 
As  early  as  1856  he  had  become  convinced  that 
the  country  could  not  endure  half  slave  and  half 
free;  but  he  withheld  the  utterance  of  that  conclu- 
sion until  the  people  had  thought  their  way  well 
on  to  his  own  position. 

248 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AS  A  DEMOCRAT 

We  have  seen  how  the  Democrats  throughout 
the  land  came  suddenly  to  accept  the  theory  of  the 
righteousness  of  slavery,  while  a  demand  arose 
among  the  people  for  a  more  emphatic  and  more 
effective  utterance  of  the  opposing  belief  in  the 
unrighteousness  of  slavery.  The  Republican  party 
in  the  beginning  dealt  much  in  negations.  It 
loudly  denied  any  intention  to  interfere  with  slavery 
in  the  states.  Its  purpose  was  to  restrict  its  area, 
not  to  attack  it.  The  sentiment  in  the  Democratic 
party  favorable  to  slavery  seemed  to  grow  rapidly, 
and  over  against  it  grew,  with  equal  pace,  the 
moral  pressure  urging  to  direct  expression  against 
the  evil.  Mr.  Lincoln  determined  that  the  Repub- 
lican party  should  be  made  the  instrument  for  the 
utterance  of  this  moral  conviction  in  the  hearts  of 
the  dumb  masses  of  the  people.  Had  the  party 
made  Douglas  their  leader,  as  many  desired  and 
expected,  they  would  have  secured  the  cooperation 
of  a  large  number,  especially  in  the  South,  who 
believed  in  slavery  ;  the  party  would  have  dealt 
with  political  policies  rather  than  with  moral  pre- 
cepts, and  the  moral  reprobation  of  slavery  would 
have  found  expression  through  other  channels. 

Mr.  Lincoln  reflected  the  ignorance  and  the 
erroneous  beliefs  of  his  age  as  faithfully  as  he 
reflected  its  moral  sentiment  against  slavery.  We 
now  know  that  the  common  belief  was  not  true 
that  slavery  was  strong  and  aggressive  and  in 
danger  of  being  extended  in  all  directions  into  adja- 
cent territory.  It  seems  almost  grotesque  from 
249 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

the  standpoint  of  to-day  that  a  man  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
intelligence  should  have  expected  that,  even  when 
everything  had  been  done  against  slavery  which 
he  believed  ought  to  be  done,  it  would  still  endure 
for  more  than  a  hundred  years.  In  this  he  but 
reflected  the  common  error  that  the  institution 
possessed  the  elements  of  endurance. 

Even  as  a  leader  of  his  party,  as  a  candidate  for 
the  presidency,  and  as  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the 
nation,  Lincoln  sought  only  to  recognize  and  give  ex- 
pression to  the  aspirations  and  purposes  of  the  peo- 
ple. He  originated  nothing  and  made  no  pretence 
of  doing  so.  He  believed  in  democracy  —  in  the 
right  and  the  power  of  the  people,  as  public  men 
had  not  believed  in  them  hitherto.  He  believed 
that  the  Union  would  be  preserved  because  the 
people  would  not  allow  it  to  be  divided.  When 
Horace  Greeley  and  other  men  of  influence  were 
disposed  to  say  of  the  Confederate  states,  "  Let 
the  erring  sisters  go,"  the  President  could  not  be 
brought  to  admit  that  the  continuous  assertion  for 
a  whole  generation  of  the  primary  importance  of 
the  Union  was  to  go  for  nothing.  He  would  not 
yield  his  faith  that  the  people  had  maintained  that 
doctrine  because  they  believed  in  it.  He  knew 
they  were  not  hypocrites ;  and  he  knew  that  if  the 
people  believed  in  the  transcendent  value  of  the 
Union,  that  Union  need  not  be  surrendered. 

The  conduct  of  the  war  was  controlled  by  this 
attitude  of  the  President.  It  was  at  first  looked 
upon  as  a  small  affair  —  a  dainty,  white  man's 
250 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AS  A  DEMOCRAT 

war;  the  negro  was  to  have  neither  part  nor 
lot  in  the  business.  As  the  people  thought  so 
planned  their  commander-in-chief.  Nothing  was 
further  from  the  national  purpose  than  to  under- 
take a  war  for  the  abolition  of  slavery ;  there  was 
no  intention  to  interfere  with  the  institution  in  any 
way.  The  negro  was,  to  Lincoln,  as  to  the  body  of 
his  countrymen,  a  member  of  an  inferior  race.  Not 
for  him  the  squandering  of  the  white  man's  blood 
and  treasure.  When  the  Northern  abolition  soldier 
manifested  reluctance  to  lend  his  aid  for  restoring 
fugitive  slaves  to  their  masters  and  for  guarding 
the  human  property  of  slaveholders,  Lincoln  was 
not  disturbed.  He  knew  that  the  abolitionist  had 
never  really  represented  the  people  of  the  North. 
But  as  he  was  never  far  in  advance  of  popu- 
lar sentiment,  so  he  never  by  any  possibility 
fell  behind.  Always  as  opinion  progressed  there 
stood  the  President  to  give,  at  the  effective 
moment,  expression,  forceful  form,  to  the  inchoate 
thought  of  the  multitude.  In  the  tug  of  war 
abolition  views  showed  a  tendency  to  come  to  the 
front.  A  foretaste  of  this  had  been  given  by  the 
Kansas  struggle,  when  proslavery  Democrats, 
going  out  with  the  express  purpose  of  driving  the 
abolitionists  from  the  territory,  had  been  forced  as 
honest  men  to  become  practical  abolitionists  them- 
selves. In  the  mightier  conflict  opinion  moved 
rapidly  throughout  the  North  in  the  direction  of 
emancipation.  Sensitive  to  every  ripple  of  change, 
Lincoln  was  nevertheless  not  one  to  mistake  the 

251 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

foam  upon  the  crest  of  the  wave  for  the  resistless 
swell  of  the  tide.  When  the  billow  had  gathered 
volume  and  overmastering  power,  then  he  opened 
the  flood-gates.  When  General  Fremont  with  pre- 
mature ardor  proclaimed  freedom  to  the  enslaved 
within  the  department  of  Missouri,  the  President 
overruled  the  act  and  removed  the  impatient 
leader.  He  knew  that  it  was  safe  to  wait. 

Meanwhile  the  dilettante  war  became  a  solemn 
and  fearful  death-struggle.  Multitudes  were  dy- 
ing to  save  the  Union,  and  the  feeling  grew  that 
they  were  dying  also  to  free  the  negroes.  Why 
should  not  the  negroes  share  in  the  glory  and  the 
suffering  ?  The  black  man  proved  a  good  soldier, 
and  he  gave  his  life  willingly  for  his  country.  So 
the  idea  of  emancipation  became  general  and 
insistent.  And  then  came  the  proclamation. 

Lincoln  was  thoroughly  original  and  peculiar 
in  his  genuine  and  controlling  belief  in  democracy. 
Thousands  before  him  had  professed  to  believe  in 
it,  tens  of  thousands  had  hoped  that  the  demo- 
cratic theory  would  prove  the  correct  one,  mill- 
ions had  traditionally  accepted  the  name  of 
Democrat,  but  few  indeed  had  been  the  men  who 
really  believed  in  democracy  as  did  Abraham 
Lincoln.  His  faith  was  unquestioning,  unequivo- 
cal, full,  complete,  and  intelligent.  The  mature, 
ripened  political  judgment  of  the  people  he  ac- 
cepted as  absolutely  final.  In  that  type  of  democ- 
racy in  which  Lincoln  believed,  what  the  people 
actually  think  becomes  for  the  statesman  the  ulti- 

252 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AS  A  DEMOCRAT 

mate  determining  fact.  Not  that  the  people  were 
deemed  infallible.  He  was  wont  to  admit  that 
all  the  people  might  be  deceived  part  of  the  time, 
and  some  of  the  people  all  the  time.  "  But,"  he 
would  say,  "  you  cannot  deceive  all  the  people  all 
the  time."  Lincoln's  theory  and  practice  in  states- 
manship were  to  follow  in  all  simplicity  of  heart 
and  purpose  the  leadership  of  the  true  spirit  of 
the  people,  believing  that  in  themselves  dwells  the 
power  to  right  an  error,  the  wisdom  to  see  a  mis- 
taken trend,  and  the  self -determining  force  which 
alters  a  false  course  ere  it  is  too  late.  Hence, 
what  the  people  believe,  or  more  especially  and 
more  accurately  what  the  people  are  on  the  point 
of  believing,  is  the  decisive  factor  for  the  guidance 
of  the  truly  democratic  statesman. 

The  irrepressible  conflict  and  the  house  divided 
against  itself,  which  rose  before  the  acute  vision  of 
Seward  and  Lincoln,  involved  something  deeper 
and  more  fundamental  than  a  mere  temporary  ques- 
tion of  the  legal  status  of  four  million  slaves.  Under 
the  same  nominal  rule  were  gathered  those  believ- 
ing in  opposite  and  contradictory  sorts  of  govern- 
ment. Only  to  outward  seeming  had  there  grown 
up  a  widespread  acceptance  of  democracy.  The 
ruling  classes  in  the  South  had  no  belief  in  de- 
mocracy. Such  a  belief  carries  with  it  a  readiness 
to  commit  every  institution  to  the  test  of  public 
opinion  under  free,  untrammelled  discussion.  A 
policy  or  an  institution  which  will  not  bear  the 
strain  of  free  discussion  cannot  survive  in  a  true 

253 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

democracy.  From  the  beginning  of  the  debate 
the  leaders  of  the  South  assumed  that  slavery 
could  not  be  safely  discussed.  Now,  had  those 
who  believed  in  slavery  been  democrats,  they 
would  have  pursued  a  different  course ;  they  would 
have  invited  free  discussion ;  they  would  have 
called  attention  to  the  excellences  of  their  insti- 
tutions ;  they  would  have  solicited  free  and  im- 
partial investigation.  The  extravagant  utterances 
of  the  abolitionists  would  have  caused  them  no 
fear,  nor  have  betrayed  them  into  violent  acts  of 
repression. 

To  a  consistent  believer  in  the  truly  democratic 
State  there  are  no  dangerous  opinions.  All  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men  in  a  democracy  are  not 
only  permitted  to  think  and  to  express  themselves 
freely  on  all  matters  of  common  interest,  but  they 
are  encouraged,  they  are  urged,  to  do  so.  Free 
thought  and  free  expression  of  thought  are  the 
very  life  of  the  democratic  State.  But  in  any  sort 
of  State  it  must  sometimes  happen,  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  that  certain  citizens  will  find 
their  individual  interests  assailed.  The  interests 
assailed  may  sometimes  be  of  such  a  character 
that  they  will  not  bear  public  investigation  and 
public  discussion.  Now  to  a  democrat  who  finds 
his  individual  concerns  attacked,  the  very  last 
thing  to  do  will  be  to  make  a  public  bonfire  and 
burn  the  books  of  those  who  have  spoken  against 
his  interests.  By  no  rational  process  can  a  demo- 
crat become  a  violent  suppressor  of  free  discus- 
254 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   AS  A   DEMOCRAT 

sion.  The  members  of  the  slave  power  from  the 
beginning  demonstrated  by  their  conduct  that 
they  did  not  believe  in  democracy;  they  believed 
in  government  by  force  ;  the  free  and  untram- 
melled discussion  of  their  peculiar  institution 
they  would  not  tolerate.  They  made  it  unsafe 
for  a  Northern  abolitionist  to  go  to  the  South, 
or  for  a  Southern  abolitionist  to  speak  his  mind. 
The  author  of  Helper's  Impending  Crisis  became  a 
fugitive  from  injustice  because  he,  though  a  South- 
ern man,  had  the  temerity  to  express  unfavorable 
opinions  upon  slavery. 

That  which  constituted  the  irrepressible  conflict 
in  1858  was  the  fact  that,  by  a  large  body  of  Amer- 
ican citizens,  a  fundamental  principle  of  democ- 
racy had  been  systematically  violated  for  a  whole 
generation.  The  people  had  professed  to  believe 
in  democracy,  yet  in  respect  to  one  conspicuous  in- 
stitution they  had  pursued  a  policy  of  repression 
of  public  opinion.  This  was  not  true  in  the  South 
alone  ;  in  the  North  as  well  immense  pressure  was 
brought  to  bear  in  the  churches,  in  colleges  and 
universities,  and  in  commercial  circles,  against  the 
frank  and  open  discussion  of  the  slavery  question. 
By  this  restraint  upon  discussion  where  discussion 
was  much  needed,  a  generation  had  been  permitted 
to  grow  up  victims  of  a  fatal  delusion.  The  North 
was  allowed  to  fall  into  false  beliefs  about  the  South 
and  about  slavery ;  the  South  was  likewise  deluded 
into  false  beliefs  about  the  North.  Having  violated 
the  fundamental  principles  of  free  government,  the 
255 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

political  parties  as  national  organs  for  discussion 
and  action  went  to  pieces,  and  nothing  was  left 
for  the  deluded  people  but  to  fight  and  to  suffer 
until  the  State  was  destroyed  or  a  mutual  under- 
standing was  restored.  The  Civil  War  was  a  con- 
sequence of  a  neglect  of  political  duty.  The  quiet, 
the  orderly,  the  industrious,  the  thoughtful,  had 
permitted  the  growth  of  a  despotic  policy  which 
for  a  generation  had  shackled  free  speech.  When 
the  slavery  debate  would  not  down  at  the  bidding 
of  the  undemocratic  South,  they  left  the  discussion 
to  injudicious  agitators  in  the  North  and  "  fire-eat- 
ers "  in  the  South.  Thus  democracy  failed  in  the 
New  World,  as  every  former  attempt  had  failed, 
because  power  was  allowed  to  drift  into  the  hands 
of  those  who  did  not  believe  in  democracy.  Then, 
as  was  inevitable,  freedom  of  discussion  had  been 
suppressed,  and  the  people,  deprived  of  the  privi- 
lege of  arguing  out  their  differences,  fell  back  into 
the  old,  despotic  way  of  fighting  them  out. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  asserted,  in  course  of  his 
great  debate  with  Douglas  in  1858,  that  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  as  led  by  the  Southern  slavocracy 
would  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  that  the 
people  of  the  country  should  "  quit "  saying  that 
they  believed  slavery  to  be  wrong,  that  they  should 
"quit"  thinking  about  it,  that  they  should  "quit" 
caring  for  it,  he  but  called  attention  to  a  general 
condition  of  public  sentiment  in  the  North  as  well 
as  in  the  South.  The  people  had  accepted  the  un- 
democratic dictum  of  certain  aristocratic  teachers, 

256 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AS  A  DEMOCRAT 

that  there  were  certain  subjects  of  public  import 
upon  which  it  was  wrong  to  think  and  to  talk  freely. 
This  is  another  way  of  saying  that  the  great  body 
of  the  people  did  not  believe  in  democracy.  Though 
they  had  left  themselves  without  any  means  of 
government  except  democracy,  they  had  rejected 
democracy.  They  were  trusting  to  accident,  to 
tricks  of  constitutional  barriers,  to  the  facile  re- 
course of  running  away  from  political  responsibility 
and  taking  refuge  in  the  wilderness.  Lincoln,  as  a 
typical  democrat,  called  his  countrymen  back  to  the 
elemental  principles  of  free  government.  He  made 
them  see  that  upon  every  public  question  it  was 
both  their  right  and  their  duty  to  think,  to  be  anx- 
ious and  to  express  their  solicitude,  and  so  to  ex- 
press their  convictions  as  to  control  the  conduct  of 
their  government.  He  started  American  democ- 
racy upon  a  new  and  more  hopeful  career,  because 
guided  by  more  logical  and  consistent  principles. 


257 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  REVIVED 

IN  the  year  1858,  after  the  plot  for  forcing  slav- 
ery into  Kansas  had  been  effectually  defeated,  it 
became  a  serious  question  with  the  Republican 
leaders  whether  their  party  should  not  be  allowed 
to  take  its  place  upon  the  long  list  of  minor  par- 
ties whose  ephemeral  careers  have  strewn  the 
course  of  American  politics,  and  disappear  from 
sight.  Many  of  them  were  beginning  to  realize 
that  the  particular  issue  upon  which  the  Republican 
party  came  into  existence  was  already  settled,  and 
they  were  in  favor  of  making  Douglas  their  candi- 
date for  the  presidency.  Had  that  view  prevailed 
among  the  party  leaders,  and  had  Douglas  been 
accepted  as  the  presidential  candidate,  a  funda- 
mental readjustment  of  parties  would  have  resulted. 
Representative  Southern  Whigs  and  Know-noth- 
ings, like  Bell  of  Tennessee  and  Crittenden  of 
Kentucky,  would  have  been  given  places  in  the 
party  of  Douglas,  and  would  have  carried  into  it 
much  of  the  Southern  support  which  Bell  com- 
manded in  1860.  Moreover,  such  Southern  Dem- 
ocrats as  Walker  of  Mississippi  and  Stanton  of 
Tennessee,  who  had  given  loyal  support  to  the 
258 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  REVIVED 

free  state  cause  in  Kansas,  would  have  felt  at 
home  with  Douglas  Democrats  and  Republicans 
who  owned  Douglas  as  leader.  Once  more  it  may 
be  said  that  a  truly  national  party  to  confront  the 
Democrats  at  this  juncture  might  have  saved  the 
country.  A  national  organization  of  Northern  Re- 
publicans united  with  Southern  Unionists  would  so 
have  bound  the  states  together  that  there  could 
have  been  no  serious  civil  war,  and  the  Union 
could  not  have  been  dismembered. 

But  the  last  opportunity  for  uniting  the  sections 
in  a  national  anti-secession  party  passed  unem- 
braced.  Deception  and  misunderstanding  were  in 
the  way,  and  they  were  left  to  work  out  the  full 
measure  of  the  varied  ills  possible  to  those  seem- 
ingly mild  but  really  diabolic  influences.  Both 
North  and  South  were  utterly  deceived  as  to  the 
true  spirit  and  purpose  of  the  opposing  section. 
Each  was  under  a  misconception  as  to  the  strength 
of  the  system  of  labor  which  prevailed  in  the  other 
section.  Especially  did  the  people  of  the  North 
misapprehend  the  defences  of  slavery.  They  be- 
lieved it  to  be  impregnable  in  the  South  and 
powerfully  aggressive  in  the  territories.  They 
could  scarce  be  made  to  accept  as  true  the  accom- 
plished fact  of  a  free-soil  triumph  in  Kansas. 
When  they  read  that  New  Mexico  had  enacted  a 
law  which  legalized  slavery,  many  were  convinced 
that  an  actual  addition  to  slave  territory  had  thus 
been  secured.  And  when  it  was  reported  in  their 
hearing  that  Robert  Toombs  had  declared  that  he 

259 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 


would  yet  call  the  roll  of  his  slaves  in  the  shadow 
of  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  they  looked  for  the 
speedy  advance  of  the  slave  power  in  the  deter- 
mination to  capture  and  control  the  entire  nation. 
We  may  admit  now  that  no  such  remark  was  ever 
made  by  Senator  Toombs,  but  the  widespread 
acceptance  of  the  tale  in  the  North  helped  to  fos- 
ter the  belief  that  there  was  no  security  for  free 
labor  but  by  aggressive  war  against  slavery. 
There  was,  indeed,  no  general  disposition  to  attack 
slavery  in  the  states  except  as  the  fear  developed 
that  the  slave  power  was  disposed  to  attack  the 
system  of  free  labor  in  the  North. 

The  South,  on  the  other  hand,  while  thoroughly 
misunderstanding  the  temper  and  designs  of  the 
North,  realized  more  and  more  clearly  that  she 
was  fighting  a  losing  battle.  Every  promise  of 
more  tolerable  conditions  had  turned  against  her. 
The  Fugitive  Slave  Law  had  made  her  property 
less  secure.  The  legalizing  of  slavery  in  the  terri- 
tories had  served  only  to  demonstrate  the  impossi- 
bility of  establishing  it  there  or  elsewhere.  When 
the  most  desperate  and  fanatical  proslavery  ag- 
gressors organized  filibustering  expeditions  against 
neighboring  countries  for  the  purpose  of  seizing 
slave  territory  for  annexation  to  the  United  States, 
their  leaders  were  taken  and  shot  with  the  open 
approval  of  even  Democratic  administrations.  The 
future  looked  dark  indeed  to  those  who  saw  in  the 
development  of  the  peculiar  institution  the  only 
hope  of  progress  for  the  Southern  section.  With 

260 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  REVIVED 

the  failure  of  the  Lecompton  constitution  in 
Kansas,  Southern  leaders  clearly  saw  that  under 
the  American  flag  no  more  soil  would  be  yielded 
to  slave  labor. 

The  Dred  Scott  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
while  it  deeply  incensed  the  North,  did  not  greatly 
comfort  the  South ;  nor  did  it  bring  to  the  slave- 
owners any  practical  advantage.  It  had  only  served 
to  hold  out  an  illusive  hope  to  be  suddenly  dashed 
to  the  ground.  The  Nullifiers,  from  the  very 
logic  of  their  position,  had  been  taught  to  distrust 
and  to  belittle  the  Court.  Calhoun  had  expressed 
a  fear  that  the  Supreme  Court  might  sometime  hold 
that  Congress  had  a  right  to  abolish  slavery  in  the 
states.  It  was  dangerous,  therefore,  for  the  slave- 
holders to  develop  a  reverence  for  such  an  untrust- 
worthy institution.  If  by  virtue  of  one  favorable 
decision  the  South  should  inadvertently  come  to 
reverence  the  Court,  why  might  not  that  too,  like 
every  former  piece  of  apparent  good  fortune,  be 
turned  against  them  ? 

We  have  seen  that  a  political  party  which  seeks 
to  attain  unto  permanent  existence  in  a  democracy 
must  at  least  profess  to  represent  the  highest  inter- 
ests of  all  the  people ;  it  cannot  confine  itself  to  a 
section  or  a  class  or  to  a  single  line  of  effort.  By 
a  series  of  accidents  previously  explained  the  offi- 
cial Democratic  party  had  in  1858  become  pro- 
slavery  ;  it  stood  for  the  interests  of  the  slave- 
holder. But  at  no  time  had  the  Democratic  party 
the  least  intention  of  going  out  of  existence,  or  of 
261 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

allowing  itself  to  become  anything  less  than  a 
great  national  party.  Having  become  proslavery, 
it  was  natural  that  the  party  should  tend  to  nation- 
alize the  proslavery  sentiment,  and  it  is  one  of  the 
curiosities  of  political  history  that  it  appeared  to 
succeed  thoroughly  in  this.  The  Republican  party 
likewise  aspired  to  achieve  national  recognition. 
It  would  gladly  have  won  a  following  in  the 
Southern  states,  but  it  failed  to  attract  the  anti- 
slavery  and  anti-secession  elements  there. 

The  Democratic  party  of  the  North  was  divided 
in  1846  over  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  one  portion 
forming  the  nucleus  for  the  Free-soil  party. 
Dividing  again  in  1854,  it  furnished  an  important 
element  to  the  Republican  party.  A  third  split, 
in  1858,  gave  rise  to  a  plan,  never  fully  matured, 
for  the  formation  of  still  another  party  which 
should  draw  to  itself  the  anti-secessionists  of  the 
South  and  the  antislavery  people  of  the  North. 
The  fulfilment  of  this  scheme  was  prevented  by  a 
series  of  occurrences  in  the  state  of  Illinois. 

A  state  legislature  was  elected  which  would 
choose  a  successor  to  Senator  Douglas.  Douglas 
himself  was  the  undisputed  candidate  for  his  own 
party.  Eastern  Republicans  strongly  recommended 
that  he  should  also  be  made  the  candidate  of  the 
Republican  party  of  the  state.  Of  course  their 
desire  and  intention  was  thus  to  promote  and 
widen  the  breach  in  the  Democratic  party  already 
begun.  The  Republicans  of  Illinois,  however, 
determined  upon  a  radically  different  policy  ;  at  a 

262 


THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY   REVIVED 

state  convention  in  June  they  nominated  Abraham 
Lincoln  as  a  candidate  for  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate in  opposition  to  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  This 
plan  was  formed  in  the  party  many  weeks  before 
the  meeting  of  the  convention,  and  Lincoln  had 
full  time  to  prepare  a  speech  setting  forth  the 
issues  of  the  campaign. 

In  the  opening  sentences  of  his  famous  Spring- 
field speech,  delivered  upon  the  acceptance  of  the 
Republican  nomination  for  the  United  States  sena- 
torship,  occurred  the  following  sentences :  "  We 
are  now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was 
initiated  with  the  avowed  object,  and  confident  prom- 
ise, of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation.  Under 
the  operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not 
only  not  ceased,  but  has  continually  augmented. 
In  my  opinion,  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall 
have  been  reached  and  passed.  A  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe  this  govern- 
ment cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and 
half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dis- 
solved —  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall  —  but  I 
do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will 
become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Either  the 
opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread 
of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest 
in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction ;  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward 
till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  states, 
old  as  well  as  new —  North  as  well  as  South." 

Upon  the  issue  as  made  up  in  the  Lincoln  and 
263 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

Douglas  debate  the  next  presidential  election  was 
carried,  and  then  the  country  drifted  straight  into 
civil  war. 

On  matters  of  practical  statesmanship  affecting 
the  slavery  question  Lincoln  and  Douglas  were  not 
far  apart.  In  the  speeches  of  the  campaign 
Douglas  gloried  in  the  fact  that  he  had  fought 
beside  Clay  and  Webster  for  the  Compromise  of 
1850.  Lincoln  also  had  favored  that  measure. 
He  stated  explicitly  that  he  did  not  favor  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia ;  he  was 
not  in  favor  of  an  unconditional  repeal  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law ;  he  was  not  in  favor  of  abol- 
ishing the  slave  trade  between  the  states.  Asked 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  words  "  ultimate  extinc- 
tion "  of  slavery,  he  said  that  he  did  not  expect 
that  the  institution  would  disappear  in  less  than 
a  hundred  years.  He  was  not  in  favor  of  using 
federal  power  in  any  way  to  interfere  with  slavery 
in  the  states.  Lincoln  agreed  with  Douglas  that 
the  negro  belonged  to  an  inferior  race.  In  his 
Peoria  speech  he  said :  "  I  have  no  purpose  to 
introduce  political  and  social  equality  between  the 
white  and  black  races.  There  is  a  physical  dif- 
ference between  the  two  which,  in  my  judgment, 
will  probably  forever  forbid  their  living  together 
upon  the  footing  of  perfect  equality  ;  and  inasmuch 
as  it  becomes  a  necessity  that  there  must  be  a 
difference,  I,  as  well  as  Judge  Douglas,  am  in 
favor  of  the  race  to  which  I  belong  having  the 
superior  position." 

264 


THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY   REVIVED 

Douglas's  peculiar  and  distinctive  doctrine  of 
popular  sovereignty  was  resulting  in  the  triumph 
of  freedom  in  the  territories,  and  William  H.  Sew- 
ard  and  other  leading  Republicans  were  led  to 
avow  openly  their  acceptance  of  the  principle 
and  their  willingness  to  unite  with  Douglas  in  an 
effort  to  secure  its  honest  observance.  Lincoln's 
objections  to  the  Douglas  policy  were  historic  and 
theoretical  rather  than  practical.  He  maintained 
that  it  had  worked  mischief  in  Kansas  —  citing  the 
long  years  of  disturbance ;  yet  he  did  not  advocate 
a  repeal  of  the  Act  of  1854. 

It  was  in  their  moral  attitude  toward  slavery 
that  Lincoln  and  Douglas  differed,  rather  than  in 
specific  policies.  It  was  always  fashionable  for 
Northern  Whigs  to  express  disapproval  of  slavery, 
and  until  the  split  in  the  Democratic  party  over 
the  Wilmot  Proviso  it  was  likewise  fashionable 
among  Northern  Democrats.  But  in  Lincoln's 
case  disapproval  of  slavery  was  a  deep  and  vital 
conviction.  Douglas  tried  to  fasten  upon  him  the 
odium  of  abolitionism,  but  it  was  easy  to  disprove 
the  charge ;  he  never  had  the  slightest  sympathy 
with  the  abolition  movement.  Douglas's  real  con- 
victions on  the  slavery  question  are  not  so  easily 
stated.  As  explained  above,  it  was  almost  impos- 
sible for  one  to  be  a  Democrat  in  1858  and  at  the 
same  time  openly  profess  hostility  to  slavery.  His 
doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty  taken  in  its  rela- 
tion to  political  conditions  almost  compelled  Doug- 
las to  express  indifference  to  slavery.  This  he 

265 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

certainly  did.  Here  was  Lincoln's  great  oppor- 
tunity in  the  debate,  and  he  used  it  to  the  utter- 
most The  moral  sense  of  the  age  was  against 
slavery,  but  Mr.  "  Douglas  did  not  care  whether 
slavery  was  voted  up  or  voted  down."  As  Douglas 
accused  Lincoln  of  being  an  abolitionist,  so  Lincoln 
classed  Douglas  with  the  slaveholders  of  the  South. 
This  was  the  real  issue  in  the  great  debate : 
Lincoln  represented  the  conscience  of  the  age  in 
his  moral  reprobation  of  slavery.  At  that  point 
Douglas,  as  a  Democrat,  was  vulnerable.  Douglas 
in  his  turn  charged  upon  Lincoln  a  purpose  to 
destroy  the  Union.  The  words  "  a  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand"  were  made  by  Douglas 
the  key-note  of  the  campaign.  Lincoln  had  in- 
sisted upon  retaining  these  words  contrary  to  the 
advice  of  nearly  all  his  friends.  Taken  in  their 
connection  it  was  seen  that  they  would  be  under- 
stood to  mean  that  the  Republican  party  of  the 
North  was  going  to  assume  an  aggressive  attitude 
against  slavery  in  the  states.  This  the  party 
had  always  denied.  Lincoln  himself  repudiated 
any  such  intention.  But  if  his  words  did  not  mean 
that,  then  what  did  they  mean  ?  Mr.  Douglas  was 
not  slow  to  see  this  vulnerable  point  in  Lincoln's 
position,  and  in  every  one  of  his  hundred  speeches 
he  rang  the  changes  upon  those  threatening  words. 
Lincoln  was  made  to  represent  a  party  confined  to 
one  section  of  the  country  which  was  assuming  an 
aggressive  attitude  toward  another  section.  It  was 
easy  for  Lincoln  to  explain  that  he  had  personally 

266 


THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY  REVIVED 

no  such  intention,  but  there  the  words  stood.  "We 
are  approaching  a  crisis,"  he  had  said,  "  and  the 
end  of  that  crisis  will  be  the  end  of  either  slavery 
or  freedom  in  this  country." 

Had  Mr.  Lincoln  been  addressing  a  church 
congress,  or  a  reform  club,  or  an  ethical  society, 
his  words  would  have  carried  with  them  no  practi- 
cal political  import;  but  as  they  were  carefully 
chosen  expressions  addressed  to  a  political  party 
whose  leaders  expected  in  a  very  few  years  to 
control  the  offices  of  the  United  States  govern- 
ment, they  seemed  portentous  with  purpose. 
When  the  Republicans  came  to  face  this  crisis, 
would  they  not  find  themselves  pledged  to  inaugu- 
rate a  policy  which  would  destroy  slavery  in  the 
states  ?  In  the  stress  of  debate  the  question  was 
urged,  what  was  the  Republican  party  going  to  do 
to  back  up  these  high-sounding  assertions  ?  and 
then  it  appeared  from  Lincoln's  replies  that  it  was 
not  going  to  do  anything  as  a  party  ;  it  was  not  going 
to  exercise  any  one  of  the  powers  which  the  Con- 
stitution conferred  upon  the  federal  government 
to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  states.  According 
to  Lincoln's  exposition  the  Republican  party  would 
act  as  if  it  were  a  church,  a  reform  club,  or  an 
ethical  society ;  it  would  simply  exercise  the  right 
of  saying  that  slavery  was  wrong.  Lincoln  did  not 
believe  in  agitation;  he  had  no  sympathy  with 
abolitionists ;  he  arraigned  Douglas  as  the  chief 
promoter  of  agitation,  and  he  said  that  if  any  way 
could  be  devised  whereby  the  agitation  could  be 

267 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

arrested,  he  himself  was  ready  to  desist  from  the 
exciting  discussion. 

It  was  quite  impossible  that  the  Nullifiers  of  the 
South  should  comprehend  a  political  party  that 
would  rest  satisfied  with  piously  expressing  the 
belief  that  slavery  was  wrong ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  looked  for  nothing  else  than  that  a  policy 
would  be  inaugurated  to  remove  the  wrong.  South- 
ern politicians  were  accustomed  to  act.  They  left 
to  preachers  the  task  of  proving  that  slavery  was 
right,  while  they  themselves  devised  methods  to 
protect  their  institutions.  Given  a  party  in  control 
of  the  government  whose  members  were  committed 
to  the  doctrine  that  slavery  is  wrong,  Southern 
politicians  looked  for  measures  for  the  destruction 
of  slavery  to  follow,  as  they  looked  for  night  to 
follow  day. 

This  quite  natural  impression  in  the  South  was 
reenforced  by  an  utterance  of  another  Republican 
leader,  better  known  and  more  influential  at  this 
time  in  party  councils  than  Lincoln. 

In  August,  1858,  while  the  Lincoln  and  Douglas 
campaign  was  in  progress  in  Illinois,  William  H. 
Seward  delivered  an  address  at  Rochester,  New 
York,  in  which  he  used  the  words,  "  It  is  an  irre- 
pressible conflict  between  opposing  and  enduring 
forces,  and  it  means  that  the  United  States  must 
and  will,  sooner  or  later,  become  entirely  a  slave- 
holding  nation  or  entirely  a  free  labor  nation." 
These  declarations  of  Lincoln  and  Seward  were 
accepted  by  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  Southern  com- 

268 


THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY   REVIVED 

peers  as  proclaiming  relentless  war  upon  that 
which  was  dear  to  them  as  lying  at  the  very 
foundation  of  Southern  society  and  essential  to 
Southern  prosperity.  The  Southern  temper  stif- 
fened for  the  contest.  Submit  to  such  impertinent 
interference  in  their  own  private  affairs !  Tamely 
yield  to  the  rule  of  the  arrogant  sectional  Northern 
party  which  would  wrest  from  them  their  property 
and  destroy  the  proud  civilization  of  the  beautiful 
South  !  Never  !  They  would  rather  rend  in  twain 
the  hated  bonds  and  make  for  themselves  a  gov- 
ernment after  their  own  hearts. 

Was  it  really  a  good  thing  for  the  country  that 
the  Republican  party  was  revived  and  carried  for- 
ward to  victory  under  the  leadership  of  Lincoln 
and  Seward  ?  Would  it  have  been  better  for  the 
party  and  better  for  the  country  to  have  accepted 
Douglas  as  their  leader,  and  thus  have  secured  the 
cooperation  of  a  large  element  in  the  South  ?  To 
ask  such  a  question  is  easier  than  to  answer  it.  It 
seems  probable  that  the  immediate  advantages 
would  have  been  great,  and  that  the  country  might 
thus  have  escaped  the  scourge  of  civil  war. 

But  turning  from  that  which  might  have  been  to 
that  which  actually  was,  it  is  clear  that,  viewed 
from  the  standpoint  of  results,  few  campaigns  in 
our  history  have  been  so  fateful  as  that  of  1858. 
Here  the  issue  was  made  up  for  the  great  catas- 
trophe; that  maladjustment  of  political  parties  was 
finally  reached  which  left  the  people  helpless  in 
the  face  of  apparently  irreconcilable  differences. 
269 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

Thucydides  said  of  the  Greeks  at  the  beginning 
of  their  relentless  civil  war  that,  though  the  oppos- 
ing parties  spoke  the  same  language,  they  had  lost 
the  ability  to  understand  each  other.  Words  had 
taken  on  varying  and  contradictory  meanings,  and 
had  thus  become  a  source  of  aggravation  and  dis- 
cord. There  were  no  national  political  parties 
among  the  Hellenes  to  serve  as  a  substitute  for 
civil  war ;  no  great  organic  debating  societies 
bound  together  the  people  of  all  the  states.  In 
each  city  or  in  each  little  state  there  were  instead 
local  warring  factions  whose  members  were  ready 
to  cut  each  other's  throats.  To  the  Greeks  naught 
was  left  but  war,  which  grew  by  that  it  fed  on, 
until  the  last  vestige  of  liberty  was  destroyed  and 
the  people  were  made  victims  of  enduring  des- 
potism. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  should  have 
learned  a  lesson  from  the  history  of  the  Grecian 
states.  In  the  North  and  the  South  they  were  in 
1858  speaking  the  same  language,  but  they  had 
ceased  to  understand  each  other.  The  very  words 
of  the  national  documents  were  made  occasion  for 
quarrel.  Grown  men,  leaders  of  thought  and 
action,  were  thrown  into  frenzy  of  excitement  over 
contradictory  meanings  attached  to  certain  phrases 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  That  pri- 
mary symbol  of  union  and  harmony  thus  became, 
under  the  prevailing  unnatural  conditions,  a  source 
of  estrangement  and  discord. 

We  entirely  miss  the  point  and  meaning  of  the 
270 


THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY   REVIVED 

most  important  episode  in  our  history  if  we  con- 
clude that  the  real  cause  for  the  play  of  these  dis- 
ruptive forces  was  any  temporary  or  accidental 
matter.  The  legal  status  of  the  black  man  was  a 
temporary  accident ;  it  was  in  no  proper  sense  the 
cause  of  the  national  tragedy.  The  assertions  of 
Lincoln  and  Seward  which  determined  the  trend  of 
the  discussion  of  the  campaign  were  simply  not 
true  when  taken  in  the  sense  in  which  they  were 
intended  to  be  taken.  So  far  as  the  legal  status 
of  the  black  man  was  concerned,  the  house  was 
not  seriously  divided  against  itself.  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  simply  giving  utterance  to  a  common  delusion 
of  the  day.  Over  the  question  of  slavery  there 
was  no  irrepressible  conflict;  the  last  serious  con- 
flict was  already  practically  settled.  Slavery  had 
just  been  virtually  abolished  in  Kansas  under  the 
leadership  of  representative  Democratic  statesmen. 
This  was  but  indicative  of  its  imminent  collapse  in 
all  the  states.  Nowhere  could  slavery  endure  the 
inroads  of  the  railway,  the  telegraph,  and,  above  all, 
of  the  modern  newspaper  reporter.  The  change 
in  the  legal  status  of  the  negro  was  but  a  detail 
unimportant  in  itself.  The  war  did  not  abolish 
slavery,  it  but  gave  direction  to  an  act  already 
virtually  accomplished. 

The  real  source  of  conflict,  the  real  ground  of 
alienation  in  the  house  divided  against  itself,  was 
the  coexistence  in  the  same  body  politic  of  those 
who  believed  in  democracy  and  those  who  believed 
in  a  government  by  force.  The  quarrel  was  be- 
271 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

tween  despotism  and  government  by  public  opinion. 
This  conflict  remains  to-day.  It  is  as  old  as  history, 
and  it  will  endure  until  the  house  ceases  to  exist, 
or  until  it  ceases  to  be  divided.  The  believers  in 
despotism  and  the  believers  in  democracy  never 
have  understood  each  other;  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  they  never  will.  The  South  honestly  believed 
that  Northern  abolitionists  intended  to  lord  it  over 
them,  and  deprive  them  of  liberties  dearer  than  life 
itself.  In  the  North  the  belief  likewise  prevailed 
that  the  slave  power  would  continue  to  force  more 
and  more  humiliating  concessions.  There  was  an 
almost  universal  belief  in  the  despotic  intent  of  the 
opposing  party.  This  is  but  another  way  of  saying 
that  the  principles  of  democracy  were  in  abeyance; 
practically  the  people  had  come  to  believe  only  in 
despotism.  If  the  war  did  not  settle  the  slavery 
question  or  the  race  question,  much  less  did  it  settle 
the  conflict  between  despotism  and  democracy. 

One  of  the  most  significant  facts  in  respect  to 
the  campaign  of  1858  was  the  advancement  made 
as  it  progressed  toward  the  disruption  of  the 
Democratic  party.  In  one  of  the  joint  debates 
between  Lincoln  and  Douglas,  Douglas  was  in- 
duced to  define  very  clearly  his  position  that  the 
people  in  a  territory  might,  if  they  chose,  prevent 
by  territorial  enactment  the  introduction  of  slavery. 
This  had  been  his  view  ever  since  the  introduction 
of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  but  it  had  not  been 
the  position  of  his  proslavery  associates.  The 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred  Scott 

272 


THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY   REVIVED 

case  seemed  to  establish  the  proslavery  view. 
Douglas  accepted  that  decision  as  conclusive 
against  the  legality  of  the  Republican  claim  that 
Congress  had  power  to  exclude  slavery ;  while  he 
yet  maintained  that  it  left  intact  his  great  principle 
of  the  right  of  the  people  in  their  local  capacity  to 
determine  for  themselves  their  local  institutions. 

In  ordinary  times  this  would  have  been  mere 
academic  hair-splitting;  no  practical  policy  of  any 
importance  was  involved.  But  at  this  particular 
juncture  of  political  affairs  the  distinction  did  have 
to  do  with  the  integrity  of  a  great  national  party 
whose  welfare  was  bound  up  with  the  integrity  of 
the  Union.  The  extreme  proslavery  wing  of  the 
Democratic  party  would  not  accept  as  a  leader  and 
a  presidential  candidate  a  man  holding,  either  as  a 
theoretic  speculation  or  as  a  practical  basis  for 
action,  the  doctrine  that  the  inhabitants  of  a  terri- 
tory could  legally  exclude  slavery.  By  forcing 
Douglas  to  reiterate  his  settled  conviction  that  the 
theory  of  popular  sovereignty,  which  he  pronounced 
the  just  and  logical  principle  of  all  democracy,  did 
confer  upon  the  people  of  a  territory  the  right  to 
exclude  or  to  adopt  slavery,  Lincoln  knew  that  he 
was  making  it  impossible  for  him  ever  to  receive 
the  nomination  of  the  united  Democratic  party. 

Few  politicians  have  enjoyed  a  greater  personal 
triumph  than  did  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  although  he 
failed  to  seize  the  glittering  prize  at  which  he 
aimed.  He  stood  almost  alone ;  he  had  no  power- 
ful and  influential  supporters.  The  administration 

T  273 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

and  the  whole  of  official  Democracy  was  bitterly 
opposed  to  him.  Yet,  in  the  teeth  of  administra- 
tive patronage  and  abuse,  he  won  to  his  support 
the  national  Democratic  party.  He  made  himself 
the  candidate  of  the  last  national  Democratic  Con- 
vention before  the  Civil  War ;  and,  notwithstanding 
there  were  four  important  candidates  in  the  field, 
he  received  within  half  a  million  as  many  votes  as 
Lincoln,  the  successful  candidate ;  nearly  twice  as 
many  votes  as  Breckenridge,  the  secession  candi- 
date, and  fully  twice  as  many  as  Bell,  the  Union 
candidate.  Had  the  Republicans  accepted  Doug- 
las in  1858  as  leader  and  candidate,  the  whole 
after  course  of  our  history  would  have  been  dif- 
ferent. The  party  would  have  been  strong  in  the 
South  as  well  as  in  the  North;  in  1860  there 
would  have  been  in  the  field  only  two  parties  of 
consequence  ;  no  President  could  have  been  elected 
representing  only  a  section  of  the  country  and 
receiving  nearly  a  million  less  than  half  of  the 
votes  cast.  But  Douglas,  in  1858,  was  definitely 
repudiated  by  both  administration  Democrats  and 
Republicans.  He  was  powerless  to  capture  the 
new  party  called  into  existence  through  resistance 
to  his  own  peculiar  measure ;  but  surely  he  did 
what  a  man  could  to  control  and  hold  together 
in  the  interest  of  the  Union  the  great  Democratic 
party. 

There  was  probably  much   greater  satisfaction 
felt  among  the  Republicans  throughout  the  country 
at  Douglas's  election  over  Lincoln  in  the  Illinois 
274 


THE   REPUBLICAN   PARTY   REVIVED 

senatorial  contest  than  there  would  have  been  at 
the  election  of  Lincoln.  The  defeat  of  Douglas 
would  have  indicated  the  complete  union  and  tri- 
umph of  administration  Democracy,  while  his 
election  meant  the  further  weakening  of  the  pro- 
slavery  Democrats.  Lincoln  was,  at  this  time,  a 
comparatively  unknown  man  ;  his  candidacy  was 
contrary  to  the  advice  of  a  majority  of  the  lead- 
ers of  national  repute ;  his  election  would  have 
seemed  small  compensation  for  the  defeat  of 
Douglas,  judged  from  the  standpoint  of  seeking  for 
effective  restraint  upon  proslavery  and  disunion 
Democracy.  The  Republicans,  therefore,  rejoiced 
in  the  election  of  Douglas,  and  they  still  further 
rejoiced  in  the  fact  of  substantial  Republican  gains 
throughout  the  North.  This  was  accepted  as  a 
direct  rebuke  to  the  administration  on  account  of 
its  attitude  toward  Kansas. 


275 


CHAPTER   XX 

JOHN  BROWN  AT  HARPER'S  FERRY 

THE  Congress  elected  in  the  autumn  of  1858 
had  not  assembled  for  its  first  session  when  the 
whole  country  was  startled  by  an  event  which  fig- 
ures in  history  as  the  John  Brown  Raid.  For  that 
insurrectionary  act,  John  Brown  was  hanged  at 
Charlestown,  Virginia,  on  December  2,  1859,  the 
Friday  before  the  meeting  of  Congress. 

John  Brown  had  become  conspicuous  during  the 
disturbances  in  Kansas  as  a  leader  among  the  most 
violent  of  the  free  state  settlers.  There  his  lawless 
and  murderous  deeds  soon  made  him  an  outlaw, 
and,  with  a  price  upon  his  head,  he  left  Kansas  in 
January,  1859,  and  came  to  Virginia  with  the  pur- 
pose of  carrying  out  a  scheme  upon  which  he  had 
meditated  in  a  dreamy  way  for  a  score  of  years. 
Through  long  contemplation  of  the  evils  of  slav- 
ery, he  had  come  to  believe  in  a  divine  purpose 
to  destroy  the  system  through  violence  and  blood- 
shed, and  he  felt  himself  to  be  set  apart  of  God  to 
inaugurate  the  great  deliverance  of  the  captives 
and  the  pouring  out  of  the  wine  of  the  wrath  of 
the  Almighty  upon  their  oppressors.  Settling  at 
Harper's  Ferry  with  a  little  band  of  followers,  he 
276 


JOHN  BROWN  AT  HARPER'S  FERRY 

sought  to  incite  a  general  insurrection  of  slaves 
throughout  the  South,  by  means  of  which  they 
should  all  become  free.  The  wild,  crude,  unor- 
ganized attempt  failed,  of  course,  and  the  conspira- 
tors met  with  dignity  and  Christian  firmness  the 
fate  which  was  to  be  expected. 

The  affair  at  Harper's  Ferry,  trivial  and  insig- 
nificant as  it  was  in  itself,  is  nevertheless  of 
immense  importance  when  taken  in  its  connection 
with  the  political  events  and  tendencies  of  the 
day.  The  advocates  of  secession  were  not  suc- 
ceeding according  to  their  hopes  in  uniting  the 
Southern  states  in  a  solid  phalanx.  It  was  clear 
to  the  keen-sighted  leaders  that  the  ascendency 
of  Southern  statesmen  in  the  national  government 
was  not  to  continue.  Douglas  was  manifestly 
taking  the  Democratic  party  out  of  their  hands, 
and  it  was  evident  that  never  again  would  a 
Northern  Democrat  be  chosen  President,  who 
could  be  relied  upon  to  act  at  their  dictation  as 
had  Pierce  and  Buchanan.  But  the  masses  of  the 
Southern  people  were  not  yet  convinced  that  no 
recourse  remained  but  withdrawal  from  the  Union. 
In  every  state,  save  only  South  Carolina,  the  seces- 
sionists encountered  formidable  opposition  from 
among  their  own  people.  The  weapon  which 
John  Brown's  ill-judged,  fanatical  attempt  placed 
in  the  hands  of  the  propagandists  of  secession 
was  a  powerful  one.  "  Behold,"  they  were  able 
with  a  good  degree  of  plausibility  to  exclaim,  "  the 
legitimate  fruits  of  such  teaching  as  that  of  Seward 
277 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

and  Lincoln.  This  is  what  may  be  expected  to 
occur  throughout  the  slave  section  when  black  Re- 
publicans get  the  upper  hand."  It  was  easy  to 
persuade  the  ignorant  multitude  that  John  Brown 
was  simply  one  representative  Republican  carrying 
to  their  logical  conclusion  the  principles  upheld 
by  the  party.  The  South  made  no  distinction 
between  abolitionists  and  Republicans.  They 
were  equally  the  vile,  bloodthirsty  enemies  of  the 
Southern  states. 

The  secession  movement,  which  had  made  but 
languishing  progress  hitherto,  now  received  a 
wonderful  impetus.  That  practical  unanimity  in 
its  favor  which  had  been  lacking  now  seemed  in 
prospect  of  achievement.  If  once  the  masses  of  the 
people  could  be  made  to  believe  that  the  choosing 
of  a  Republican  President  would  be  followed  by 
the  invasion  of  armies  and  the  inciting  of  the 
ignorant  blacks  to  murder  the  whites,  then  they 
could  be  brought  to  the  unanimous  support  of  the 
secession  of  their  states.  There  were  none  in  the 
South  who  did  not  object  to  murderous  weapons  in 
the  hands  of  infuriated  negroes. 

Of  course  it  was  not  true  that  John  Brown 
represented  or  expressed  the  sentiments  of  the 
Republican  party ;  his  acts  were  not  inspired  by 
Seward's  teachings.  So  far  as  appears,  no  one 
who  was  prominent  in  party  leadership  knew  of 
his  plans  or  approved  of  his  deeds.  Yet  he  did 
have  the  approval  and  the  financial  support  of  men 
whom  Republicans  were  wont  to  honor.  Among 

278 


JOHN  BROWN  AT  HARPER'S  FERRY 

these  were  Theodore  Parker,  T.  W.  Higginson, 
and  Gerrit  Smith.  William  Lloyd  Garrison  is  not 
counted  among  those  who  countenanced  the  enter- 
prise, because  he  was  theoretically  opposed  to  the 
use  of  force,  and  advocated  moral  suasion  alone. 
His  weapons  were  words  only,  but  his  words  were 
used  as  other  men  use  daggers  and  pistols  and  fire- 
brands. It  cannot  be  denied  that  John  Brown  did, 
in  a  way,  represent  and  express  the  general  spirit 
of  the  extreme  abolition  propaganda.  That  spirit 
was  distinctly  belligerent  and  intolerant. 

For  thirty  years  the  discussion  of  the  slavery 
question  had  been  left  on  both  sides  to  those 
who  held  extreme  views  and  maintained  them  with 
intemperate  zeal.  The  moderate,  the  careful,  the 
judicious,  had  refrained  from  engaging  in  the 
struggle.  At  a  late  hour  —  not  until  June,  1858 
-  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  a  leader  in  a  new  political  party, 
did,  in  a  sense,  identify  the  policy  of  his  party  with 
the  so-called  moral  teachings  of  the  abolitionists. 
Personally,  Lincoln  had  consistently  repudiated 
this  teaching  as  immoral  and  impolitic ;  he  even 
repudiated  and  continued  to  repudiate  the  so-called 
"  higher  law  "  doctrine  of  Seward.  Personally  he 
is  consistent  with  himself ;  he  always  disapproved 
of  the  antislavery  propaganda,  though  he  always 
believed  and  affirmed  the  wrongfulness  of  slavery. 
But  when  he  identified  the  principles  of  his  party 
with  the  moral  teachings  of  abolitionists,  he  became 
himself  divided  against  himself.  Abolitionists  had 
for  too  long  a  time  enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  their 

279 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

own  sort  of  teaching ;  they  had  created  a  litera- 
ture, they  had  fixed  the  forms  of  thought,  they 
had  raised  up  leaders  of  national  reputation.  To 
identify  the  Republican  doctrines  with  the  moral 
opposition  to  slavery  meant,  under  the  political 
conditions  which  prevailed  at  the  time,  to  identify 
the  party  with  the  abolition  propaganda ;  there 
was  no  room  for  a  competing  moral  suasion  school. 
This  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  intend  to  do,  and,  so  far 
as  he  was  personally  concerned,  he  did  not  do  it. 
As  a  Republican  leader  and  a  statesman,  he  con- 
tinued to  act  just  as  if  slavery  was  not  a  moral 
question,  just  as  if  it  were  a  prudential  question 
to  be  dealt  with  according  to  the  accidents  of  the 
time. 

The  antislavery  propaganda,  with  all  its  virtues, 
fell  far  short  of  ideal  moral  perfection.  It  had 
about  it  much  that  is  good,  much  that  will  be  uni- 
versally accepted  and  approved  ;  it  had  also  much 
that  was  defective,  anti-Christian,  and,  in  the  light 
of  advancing  ethical  teachings,  immoral.  The 
John  Brown  episode  will  stand  as  an  expression  of 
the  immoral  side  of  the  antislavery  teaching. 
Rightly  enough,  men  will  continue  to  excuse  and 
explain  and  apologize  for  this  species  of  immorality, 
just  as  they  will  continue  with  equal  justice  to 
excuse  and  explain  the  moral  delinquencies  of 
slaveholders. 

The  episode  at  Harper's  Ferry  furnished  what 
was  lacking  to  insure  the  final  triumph  of  the  ex- 
treme faction  devoted  to  the  defence  of  Southern 

280 


JOHN  BROWN  AT  HARPER'S  FERRY 

institutions.  Just  as  the  insurrection  and  massacre 
by  slaves  in  Virginia,  led  by  Nat  Turner,  contrib- 
uted, in  1831,  to  its  early  success,  so  the  enter- 
prise of  John  Brown  assured  the  ultimate 
supremacy  of  that  element  in  the  South  which 
urged  on  rebellion  and  the  mutilation  of  the 
Republic. 

Between  the  leaders  of  the  most  radical  factions 
in  the  South  and  those  of  the  North  there  was 
always  a  marked  contrast.  Southern  extremists 
wasted  no  political  force  in  the  formation  of  minor 
political  parties.  The  Nullifiers,  for  example,  acted 
either  with  the  Whigs  or  the  Democrats,  and  by 
their  superior  sagacity  and  skill  in  affairs  were 
always  able  to  direct  or  to  influence  public  policy 
to  an  extent  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numbers. 
It  was  about  1850  that  a  few  of  the  most  radical 
of  those  previously  known  as  Nullifiers  became 
persuaded  that  no  way  remained  for  the  South  to 
preserve  her  distinctive  institutions  except  by  with- 
drawing from  the  compact  of  states.  But  this 
party  of  convinced  and  determined  secessionists 
not  only  did  not  separate  themselves  from  the 
Democratic  party,  they  remained  actively  influen- 
tial in  the  organization,  taking  advantage  of  every 
opportunity  to  increase  the  apparent  discord 
between  North  and  South.  If  they  did  not  inau- 
gurate policies  with  the  direct  intention  of  foment- 
ing abolition  fanaticism  in  the  North,  they  held 
themselves  ready  at  all  times  to  use  to  the  utmost 
every  occurrence  which  might  be  wrested  for  the 

281 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

purpose  of  proving  to  the  South  the  hostile  intent 
of  the  bigoted  North.  The  Harper's  Ferry  raid 
furnished  to  these  watchful  secession  advocates 
an  occasion  which  they  were  not  slow  to  improve. 


282 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  CAMPAIGN  OF    1860 

THE  session  of  Congress  which  took  place  in 
December,  1859,  was  one  °f  tne  stormiest  in  our 
history.  In  the  House  of  Representatives  no  party 
could  command  a  majority.  Administration  Demo- 
crats, Douglas  Democrats,  and  Americans  faced  the 
Republican  phalanx,  which  was  larger  than  any 
one  of  the  other  groups,  but  which  still  lacked 
several  votes  of  a  majority.  More  than  two  months 
passed  in  ineffectual  effort  to  elect  a  Speaker  and 
organize  the  House ;  but  at  last  Pennington  of 
New  Jersey,  a  conservative  Republican,  was  chosen, 
and  the  House  proceeded  to  business,  though  in 
very  turbulent  fashion.  The  debates  were  con- 
ducted with  great  vehemence  of  speech.  Severe 
words  led  to  threats  of  personal  violence,  and 
members  formed  the  habit  of  carrying  concealed 
weapons.  Though  the  civil  war  in  Kansas  had 
come  to  an  end,  there  seemed  to  be  imminent 
danger  that  it  would  break  out  on  the  floors  of 
Congress.  There  was  no  immediate  cause  for  such 
pronounced  ill  feeling;  no  specific  measures  of 
legislation,  no  scheme  of  governmental  policy  cal- 
culated to  arouse  a  bitter  contest  were  before  the 
legislators.  But  the  general  condition  of  political 
283 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

affairs  had  given  rise  to  bad  blood.  The  relations 
between  the  two  sections  were  severely  strained. 
Threats  of  secession  filled  the  air.  Among  the 
Republicans  many  had  assumed  an  attitude  of 
defiance.  The  conviction  grew  that  the  time  had 
gone  by  for  yielding  to  intimidation  and  menace. 

Early  in  the  year  1860  all  eyes  were  turned  to 
the  approaching  presidential  election,  which  was 
universally  recognized  as  fraught  with  destiny. 
The  key  to  the  situation  seemed  to  be  in  the 
hands  of  the  Democrats,  but  much  depended  upon 
the  continued  integrity  of  the  party,  and  Douglas 
was  a  thorn  in  their  side.  Having  once  broken 
with  the  proslavery  wing  of  his  party,  the  Little 
Giant  became  as  inflexible  and  uncompromising  as 
were  the  abolitionists  themselves.  He  informed 
the  Southern  leaders  that  he  was  not  seeking  a 
nomination,  though  he  would  accept  one  if  it  came 
to  him  on  principles  which  he  approved.  But  he 
would  not  accept  a  nomination  on  a  platform 
which  he  could  not  conscientiously  execute  in  good 
faith  if  elected.  He  had  no  concessions  to  make, 
no  recantations  to  offer.  With  the  powerful  sup- 
port which  he  knew  that  he  commanded  in  the 
North  he  was  ready  to  do  battle  for  his  distinctive 
principles  and  give  no  quarter. 

Jefferson  Davis  led  the  Southern  Democrats  in 
the  Senate.  He  was  the  ablest  of  the  proslavery 
faction.  Douglas  had  spoken  in  the  Senate  in 
January,  and  the  country  waited  for  a  statement 
of  the  position  of  the  Southern  Democracy.  Would 

284 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF    1860 

they,  in  view  of  the  bold  stand  which  Douglas  had 
taken,  consent  to  any  backward  steps?  Senator 
Davis  presented  in  February  a  series  of  resolutions 
which  were  understood  to  embody  the  political  ulti- 
matum of  the  proslavery  Democracy.  The  fourth 
of  these  resolutions  was  the  significant  one.  It  set 
forth  the  crucial  test  of  party  loyalty  in  the  asser- 
tion that  no  constitutional  power  belonged  either  to 
Congress  or  to  any  territorial  legislature  to  deprive 
the  slave-owner  of  the  exercise  of  his  property 
rights  in  the  territories ;  and  that  the  federal  gov- 
ernment was  in  duty  bound  to  afford  to  slave  prop- 
erty in  the  territories  the  same  protection  which  it 
furnished  to  other  forms  of  property. 

Douglas's  reiterated  declarations  had  left  no 
doubt  in  any  mind  that  a  nomination  upon  a  plat- 
form such  as  that  embodied  in  the  resolutions  of 
Jefferson  Davis  he  would  never  accept.  He  stood 
and  would  continue  to  stand  upon  his  own  platform 
of  "popular  sovereignty,"  which  involved  the  right 
of  the  inhabitants  of  a  territory,  as  of  a  state,  to 
exclude  slavery  or  to  adopt  it. 

The  stubborn  and  determined  attitude  of  the  two 
Democratic  chiefs  representing  the  two  wings  of 
the  great  national  party,  and  their  opposing  and 
irreconcilable  views,  were  the  decisive,  the  por- 
tentous facts  of  the  months  of  doubt  and  dread 
in  the  fateful  year  of  1860.  They  made  it  clear 
that  the  Democratic  party  was  hopelessly  divided, 
that  the  last  strand  of  the  national  bond  was  part- 
ing and  disunion  was  assured. 

285 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

By  a  strange  fatality  the  national  Convention  of 
the  Democrats  assembled  in  Charleston,  South 
Carolina,  in  April.  That  entire  state  had  become 
a  unit  on  the  doctrines  of  Calhoun.  It  was  the  one 
state  in  the  Union  in  which  there  was  not  in  some 
form  an  active  Union  party  or  an  effective  Union 
sentiment.  The  atmosphere  of  Charleston  was  not 
favorable  to  the  cultivation  of  national  or  Union 
sentiment  in  the  party.  In  the  convention  the 
supporters  of  Douglas  had  a  majority  of  the  dele- 
gates, but  by  the  aid  of  Oregon  and  California  the 
Southern  delegates  were  able  to  control  the  organi- 
zation. The  Committee  on  Resolutions,  being  com- 
posed of  one  member  from  each  state,  had  a 
majority  in  favor  of  adopting  the  Davis  Resolu- 
tions as  the  party  platform  so  far  as  it  concerned 
the  slavery  question.  Failing  to  agree  upon  a 
compromise,  the  committee  reported  two  platforms. 

In  the  convention  the  lines  were  drawn  as  sharply 
as  they  had  been  in  the  committee.  Neither  party 
would  recede  from  its  position.  The  Southern 
delegates  would  probably  have  accepted  the  Doug- 
las platform  on  condition  that  they  be  permitted 
to  name  the  candidates,  but  to  this  the  Northern 
delegates  would  not  agree.  They  demanded  that 
the  convention  should  first  vote  upon  the  platform, 
and  afterward  should  proceed  untrammelled  to  the 
selection  of  candidates.  After  days  of  acrimoni- 
ous debate  the  vote  was  reached,  and  the  platform 
of  the  Douglas  delegates  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of 
165  to  138.  Its  supporters  would  have  been  even 
286 


THE   CAMPAIGN    OF    1860 

more  numerous  had  it  not  been  for  the  vindictive 
use  of  the  spoils  of  office  by  President  Buchanan. 
By  this  decisive  vote  the  Charleston  Convention 
had  adopted  its  platform,  but  before  the  assembly 
proceeded  to  the  nomination  of  candidates  a  mem- 
orable scene  was  enacted.  The  delegations  from 
the  several  states  of  the  seaboard  as  far  north  as 
South  Carolina,  one  by  one,  after  an  explanatory 
speech  by  one  of  its  members,  arose  in  a  body 
and  withdrew  from  the  convention.  By  the  well- 
informed  this  act  was  accepted  at  the  time  as  the 
beginning  of  the  real  secession  of  states. 

On  two  previous  occasions  a  body  of  Southern 
political  leaders  had  taken  the  position  that,  unless 
something  special  and  peculiar  was  done  to  them 
or  for  them,  they  would  destroy  the  Union  of  the 
states.  It  happened  at  the  time  of  each  of  these 
occurrences  that  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the 
nation  was  a  Southern  slaveholder,  who  had  ready 
for  the  obstreperous  politicians  a  very  definite  and 
positive  reply.  Each  of  those  Presidents  made 
statement  to  the  effect  that,  in  case  the  uneasy 
promoters  of  secession  persisted  in  their  course, 
the  national  Executive  would  take  great  personal 
satisfaction  in  hanging  them,  individually  and 
collectively,  as  high  as  Haman.  He  made  it 
unmistakably  clear  that  upon  this  point  his  mind 
was  fully  made  up,  and  the  deed  would  be  done, 
should  occasion  offer. 

But  a  man  of  a  different  caliber  and  other  views 
of  his  official  duties  occupied  the  presidential 
287 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

chair  in  1860.  The  position  of  the  secession  party 
in  1860  in  some  respects  resembled  its  position  in 
1850,  and  in  some  respects  it  differed  from  it.  At 
the  earlier  date,  the  grievance  was,  unlimited  terri- 
tory for  the  formation  of  free  states  and  no  terri- 
tory for  the  extension  of  slavery.  In  course  of 
the  following  decade,  three  free  states  had  actually 
been  added,  while  no  territory  had  been  acquired 
for  the  effective  extension  of  slavery.  In  1850  the 
peculiar  unhappiness  of  the  proslavery  politicians 
arose  from  the  fact  that,  at  the  dictation  of  the 
South,  the  resources  of  the  entire  nation  had  been 
placed  at  their  disposal,  a  considerable  war  had 
been  fought,  and  the  affair  had  not  turned  out  as 
they  expected.  Under  a  policy  forced  upon  the 
nation  by  the  slave  power,  freedom  had  made 
greater  gains  than  slavery. 

The  special  grievance  advanced  at  the  later 
date  is  strikingly  similar :  the  two  Houses  of 
Congress,  the  United  States  Executive,  and  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  had  each  in 
turn  lent  themselves  to  the  support  of  the  South- 
ern policy,  and  the  results  were  again  contrary  to 
expectation.  Despite  all  the  sanctions  of  law,  the 
support  of  armies,  and  the  license  given  to  mob 
violence,  slavery  would  not  go  into  either  Kansas 
or  New  Mexico. 

Just  what  was  the  technical  offence  which  caused 
the  Gulf  states  to  secede  from  the  national  Con- 
vention of  the  Democratic  party  ?  The  platform 
just  adopted  by  the  Douglas  Democrats  was 
288 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF    1860 

more  favorable  to  slavery  than  any  one  ever 
previously  adopted.  The  party  had  before  been 
remarkably  harmonious  as  to  its  platforms,  and 
the  Charleston  Convention  reaffirmed  the  one 
unanimously  adopted  four  years  earlier.  That 
platform  had  declared  the  preservation  of  the 
Union  the  paramount  issue,  and  had  warned  the 
country  against  a  sectional  party  organized  upon 
the  one  issue  of  slavery.  It  approved  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  Act  as  the  only  sound  and  safe 
solution  of  the  slavery  question,  and  of  noninter- 
ference with  slavery  in  the  territories  on  the  part 
of  Congress;  and  it  declared  "that  this  was  the 
basis  of  the  Compromise  of  1850,  confirmed  by 
both  Democratic  and  Whig  parties  in  national 
conventions,  ratified  by  the  people  in  the  election 
of  1852,  and  rightly  applied  to  the  organization  of 
the  territories  in  1854."  In  1856  this  statement 
of  principles  was  to  all  appearance  entirely  accept- 
able to  the  Democratic  party  of  the  South.  The 
Douglas  platform,  in  addition  to  all  this,  affirmed 
loyalty  to  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
respect  to  slavery  in  the  territories,  and,  as  a  far- 
ther concession  to  the  proslavery  interest,  it 
favored  the  acquisition  of  Cuba. 

There  was  a  difference  of  opinion  between 
Douglas  Democrats  and  Davis  Democrats  as  to 
precisely  what  the  Supreme  Court  decision  meant 
when  applied  to  the  people  of  a  territory.  The 
Douglas  Democrats  were  willing  to  omit  any 
expression  in  their  platform  on  this  matter,  but 
u  289 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

the  Southern  Democrats  insisted  upon  having  their 
peculiar  opinion  explicitly  stated.  They  persisted 
in  saying  that  neither  Congress  nor  the  people_of 
a  territory  could  excludeslavery.  The  Douglas 
pTattorm  expressed  a  willmgnesjT]:Q_grant  -alLihat 
was_d:emanded,  in  case  the  Court  should  so  inter- 
pret the  Cnnsiitution.  Technically,  this  was  all 
that  divided  the  factions  when  the  Southern  states 
withdrew  from  the  convention. 

The  element  of  disruption  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fateful  Compromise  of  1850.  But  for  that  act 
there  would  have  been  no  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill, 
no  calling  in  question  of  the  validity  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise,  no  war  in  Kansas,  no  John 
Brown  raid,  no  continued  and  rasping  agitation  of 
public  feeling  throughout  the  two  sections  of  the 
country.  We  have  seen  how  during  the  decade  of 
unnecessary  disuniting  agitation  a  new  South  had 
come  into  being  which  misunderstood  and  hated 
the  Northern  members  of  the  sisterhood  of  states ; 
and  a  new  North  had  arisen  more  and  more  inca- 
pable of  understanding  the  South.  It  was  this  fact 
which  gave  to  the  threats  of  secession  in  1860  an 
entirely  different  meaning.  At  last  it  had  come  to 
pass  that  a  considerable  body  of  the  Southern  states 
had  reached  a  condition  in  which  it  was  possible 
for  them  to  act  together  with  practical  unanimity 
against  the  North. 

Before  the  fresh  agitation  of  1850  the  slavery 
question  was  already  settled  ;  the  only  point  which 
remained  unsettled  was  whether  the  South,  in 

290 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF    1860 

view  of  the  settlement  reached,  would  attempt  to 
break  up  the  Union ;  and  in  this  the  South  itself 
was  thoroughly  divided.  In  state  elections  in  the 
Gulf  states  the  Union  party  triumphed  ;  not  a  con- 
vention of  Southern  statesmen  could  be  called  to- 
gether who  could  be  induced  to  vote  in  favor  of 
secession.  And  along  with  the  settlement  of  the 
slavery  question  the  question  of  secession  was  also 
apparently  settled.  Previous  chapters  have  shown 
how  all  this  was  changed  by  the  Whig  Compro- 
mise. Few  men  then  suspected  that  that  act  had 
any  tendency  to  destroy  the  validity  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  and  in  1852  there  had  been  no  popu- 
lar apprehension  of  anything  of  the  sort;  though 
it  became  later  the  settled  doctrine  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party  that  the  Whig  Compromise  did  effect 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  that 
the  acts  attempting  to  legislate  slavery  into  Kan- 
sas were  but  applications  of  the  principles  set 
forth  in  the  Whig  bill.  This  was  the  real  griev- 
ance of  the  secession  leaders  in  1860:  They  had 
secured  the  cooperation  of  the  two  great  national 
parties;  they  had  received  the  hearty  support  of 
Congress,  the  National  Executive,  and  the  fed- 
eral courts,  and,  withal,  they  were  disappointed  as 
to  the  results.  But  now  at  last  the  desire  which 
had  been  growing  stronger  for  a  whole  generation 
had  been  gratified ;  the  conditions  were  such  that 
the  people  of  the  South  could  be  united  in  an  act 
of  secession. 

How  had  a  basis  for  this  unanimity  been  secured  ? 
291 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 


Those  writers  who  take  the  view  that  the  sectional 
division  arose  simply  from  contradictory  views  on 
the  slavery  question  have  a  comparatively  easy 
task.  All  that  is  necessary  to  support  the  position 
is  to  collect  at  random  the  political  utterances  of 
the  day  from  newspapers  and  speeches,  North  and 
South.  But,  like  many  another  political  theory, 
this  view  is  entirely  too  simple  to  be  true.  Jeffer- 
son Davis  stated  in  a  Democratic  convention  in 
the  state  of  Mississippi,  in  July,  1859,  that  ten 
years  earlier  men  might  have  been  found  in  the 
South  who  asserted  that  slavery  was  wrong,  but 
such  had  been  the  progress  of  "truth  and  sound 
philosophy,"  that  now  "there  is  not  probably  an 
intelligent  mind  among  our  own  citizens  who 
doubts  either  the  moral  or  the  legal  right  of  the 
institution  of  African  slavery,  as  it  exists  in  our 
country."1  Now,  if  one  can  accept  as  a  primary 
fact  the  phenomenon  that  just  at  the  time  when  the 
Christian  world  was  being  baptized  with  a  spirit 
of  liberty;  when  sympathy  for  the  oppressed  in 
all  lands  was  being  enlarged  beyond  that  found  in 
any  previous  decade ;  when  Kossuth  was  electri- 
fying American  audiences  by  the  story  of  the 
wrongs  of  the  enslaved  Hungarians ;  a  particular 
geographical  section,  peopled  by  Anglo-Saxons  of 
the  purest  blood,  had  experienced  a  remarkable 
change  of  heart  from  a  belief  that  slavery  was 
wrong  to  a  unanimous  belief  that  slavery  was  right, 
then  the  course  of  secession  and  the  Civil  War  are 

1  Rhodes,  Vol.  II.,  p.  372. 
292 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF    iB6o 

accounted  for.  But  the  thing  that  really  needs 
explanation  is  how  it  happened  that  Anglo-Saxon 
Americans  at  such  a  time  came  to  believe  and  to 
act  in  such  a  singular  way  ? 

In  a  former  chapter  I  have  endeavored  to  explain 
how  it  was  that  during  the  ten  years  following  the 
original  debate  over  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  North- 
ern Democrats  seemed  to  change  from  a  belief 
that  slavery  was  wrong  to  a  belief  that  slavery 
was  right,  while  at  the  same  time  this  apparent 
change  was  unreal  and  illusive ;  that  only  as  mem- 
bers of  a  political  party  were  they  proslavery,  while 
as  human  beings  they  were  antislavery  still.  At  a 
political  meeting  in  England  which  I  attended,  in 
1887,  there  was  a  noisy  crowd  of  believers  in 
Irish  Home  Rule.  A  Tory  speaker  turned  upon 
them  and  asked  suddenly,  "  How  many  of  you 
were  Home  Rulers  before  Gladstone  introduced 
his  bill  ?  "  Not  a  man  responded.  "  How  many 
are  Home  Rulers  now  ?  "  Half  the  meeting  gave 
vociferous  response.  Now,  it  is  possible  for  great 
bodies  of  men  to  form  definite  and  permanent  con- 
victions on  very  short  notice ;  it  is  also  possible  for 
great  bodies  of  men,  as  members  of  a  political 
party,  to  appear  to  change  their  convictions  when 
no  actual  and  effective  change  takes  place.  A 
student  of  politics  who  does  not  recognize  this 
peculiarity  of  collective  human  nature  will  go  wrong 
half  the  time. 

Upon  the  breaking  up  of  the  Whig  party  the 
Southern  voter  was  subjected  to  a  peculiar  regi- 

293 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

men.  Every  man  and  every  party  who  appealed 
for  his  support  tried  to  surpass  all  competitors  in 
abuse  of  the  Northern  abolitionists ;  each  man  and 
each  party  tried  to  excel  in  devotion  to  the  South 
and  to  the  peculiar  institutions  of  the  South. 
Under  this  political  stress  the  words  "  I  believe 
in  slavery "  came  to  have  a  peculiar  local  and 
technical  meaning.  The  words  stood  for  nothing 
at  all  which  was  positive,  but  they  represented  a 
number  of  clearly  defined  negations.  They  meant, 
"  I  do  not  believe  in  Northern  abolitionists  ;  I  do 
not  believe  in  a  war  of  races ;  I  do  not  believe  in 
subjecting  the  white  man  to  the  domination  of  the 
negro."  Davis  was  correct  in  saying  that  the  South 
was  unanimous  in  the  support  of  slavery  as  thus 
defined.  He  might  have  said  also  that  few  people 
of  the  North  held  a  different  opinion.  The  slavery 
which  the  North  condemned  was  defined  in  differ- 
ent terms ;  and  even  in  the  South  opinion  was  not 
uniform.  At  the  very  time  when  Senator  Davis 
was  proclaiming  the  unanimity  of  the  South  on 
the  slavery  question  Southern  leaders  were  still 
in  a  fever  of  excitement  over  efforts  to  suppress 
Helper's  Impending  Crisis.  John  Sherman  had  just 
been  defeated  in  his  candidacy  for  the  speakership 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  because  of  his 
alleged  complicity  in  extending  the  circulation  of 
Helper's  book.  One  of  the  Southern  members 
had  said  that  a  man  who  would  do  such  a  thing 
as  Sherman  was  accused  of  doing  was  not  only 
not  fit  to  be  Speaker  but  was  not  fit  to  live. 

294 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF    1860 

Now  Helper  had  published  a  definition  of  slav- 
ery which  differed  in  toto  from  the  technical  defi- 
nition which  was  a  basis  of  Southern  union  against 
the  North.  The  leaders  of  the  South  did  not  dare 
to  have  Helper's  definition  and  description  pre- 
sented to  the  Southern  voter ;  with  good  reason 
they  feared  that  it  might  induce  the  great  majority 
of  the  people  to  oppose  slavery.  The  Southern 
people  had  become  a  unit  against  what  they  be- 
lieved to  be  malignant  outside  aggression.  If  at 
any  time  during  the  ten  years  preceding  the  war  the 
sense  of  outside  hostile  aggression  could  have  been 
removed,  the  people  of  the  slave  states  would  them- 
selves have  divided  on  the  subject,  and  an  increas- 
ing number  would  have  been  led  to  say  that 
slavery  was  wrong.  That  which  led  the  South  to 
appear  to  be  of  one  opinion  on  the  question  of 
slavery  was  the  fear  and  dread  of  hostile  Northern 
interference. 

After  the  secession  of  the  Southern  members 
from  the  Charleston  Convention  Douglas  could 
have  been  nominated  by  a  majority  vote  of  all  the 
members,  including  the  seceders ;  but  under  the 
rule  requiring  a  two-thirds  vote  of  all  the  members 
it  was  found  impossible  to  nominate  any  one.  The 
convention  therefore  adjourned  to  meet  in  Balti- 
more, June  1 8. 

Before  the  reassembling  of  the  national  Demo- 
cratic Convention  in  Baltimore,  two  events  of  great 
importance  in  our  party  history  had  occurred.  On 
the  Qth  of  May  a  convention  calling  itself  that  of  the 
295 


POLITICAL  PARTIES 

Constitutional  Union  party  gathered  in  Baltimore. 
Being  composed  of  Whigs  and  Americans,  it  was, 
in  a  sense,  a  continuation  of  the  combination  of 
parties  which  nominated  Millard  Fillmore  in  1856. 
But  action  of  the  coalition  in  1860  was  especially 
significant  from  the  fact  of  the  widespread  belief 
that  the  Union  was  seriously  threatened.  The 
Union  party  placed  in  nomination  Bell  of  Tennes- 
see for  the  presidency  and  Everett  of  Massa- 
chusetts for  the  vice-presidency.  The  platform 
adopted  made  the  preservation  of  the  Union  para- 
mount to  all  other  issues.  On  May  16  the  con- 
vention met  in  Chicago  which  nominated  Abraham 
Lincoln  for  the  presidency.  Thus,  when  the  ad- 
journed meeting  of  the  national  Democratic  Con- 
vention met  in  Baltimore,  June  18,  two  candidates 
for  the  presidency  were  already  in  the  field. 

There  was  still  a  hope  in  the  minds  of  many 
that  the  integrity  of  the  Democratic  party  might 
after  all  be  preserved.  Some  of  the  seceding  dele- 
gates were  disposed  to  return  to  the  convention; 
but  two  states,  Alabama  and  Louisiana,  had  sent 
to  the  convention  competing  delegations.  Five 
days  were  spent  in  wrangling  over  the  constitution 
of  the  assembly.  Douglas  sent  two  messages  to 
members  of  the  convention  urging  that  his  name  be 
dropped  if  the  principle  for  which  he  stood  could 
be  supported  by  uniting  upon  another  candidate ; 
but  his  friends  would  not  consent  to  his  withdrawal. 
Finally,  on  the  fifth  day,  the  convention  admitted 
the  Douglas  delegates  from  the  Southern  states; 
296 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF    1860 

whereupon  there  ensued  a  farther  secession,  led  by 
the  delegates  from  Virginia,  followed  by  those  of 
North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  and  Mary- 
land. When  the  number  had  been  so  greatly 
reduced  and  even  the  chairman  of  the  convention 
had  withdrawn  to  join  the  seceders,  the  remaining 
members  proceeded  to  the  nomination  of  Douglas. 
The  seceders  organized  at  the  same  time  in  another 
hall  and  nominated  Breckenridge  of  Kentucky 
upon  the  Davis  platform. 

Thus  four  candidates  were  before  the  country, 
each  representing  an  important  constituency.  The 
Republicans  stood  for  opposition  to  the  Southern 
policy  of  extending  slavery.  Their  platform  dis- 
avowed any  intention  of  interfering  with  slavery 
in  the  states ;  characterized  the  John  Brown  raid 
as  a  serious  crime;  declared  that  the  normal  con- 
dition of  all  territory  belonging  to  the  United 
States  was  that  of  freedom;  and  denied  to  Con- 
gress or  to  any  territorial  legislature  the  right, 
under  the  Constitution  as  interpreted  and  applied 
by  "  our  Republican  fathers,"  to  legalize  slavery 
in  a  territory.  The  reopening  of  the  slave  trade 
was  condemned ;  the  frequent  threats  of  disunion 
by  leading  Democrats  were  denounced  ''as  an 
avowal  of  contemplated  treason,  which  it  is  the 
imperative  duty  of  an  indignant  people  sternly  to 
rebuke  and  forever  silence."  In  a  general  way, 
without  any  explicit  statement  in  the  platform,  the 
party  under  the  leadership  of  Lincoln  stood  for 
the  moral  reprobation  of  slavery. 

297 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

The  Douglas  Democrats  also  stood  for  resist- 
ance to  the  extreme  claims  of  the  Southern  Demo- 
crats. The  division  in  the  party  grew  out  of  the 
attempt  to  force  upon  Kansas  a  proslavery  con- 
stitution contrary  to  the  wishes  of  the  people  of 
the  territory.  In  order  to  retain  as  large  a  support 
in  the  South  as  possible,  the  Douglas  platform 
was  made  as  favorable  to  slavery  as  might  be 
while  the  possibility  of  excluding  slavery  from  the 
territories  was  yet  recognized.  Apart  from  the 
platform,  the  Douglas  party  emphasized  the  impor- 
tance of  the  Union.  Technically  they  were  the 
national  Democrats  ;  and  while  there  was  no  expec- 
tation of  carrying  the  election,  yet  they  made  a  vig- 
orous campaign.  Douglas  himself  made  speeches 
throughout  the  land,  even  undertaking  a  tour  of 
the  South  in  the  effort  to  reconcile  the  people  to 
the  policy  of  peaceable  submission  to  Republican 
rule. 

The  supporters  of  Breckenridge  made  no  threat 
of  secession  in  their  platform.  They  reaffirmed 
the  resolutions  of  1856,  in  which  there  were  strong 
utterances  in  favor  of  the  Union  and  against  the 
formation  of  parties  representing  a  sectional  issue. 
Yet  it  was  well  understood  that  Breckenridge  De- 
mocracy did  represent  the  disunion  sentiment  of 
the  country.  As  Douglas  said  in  the  campaign,  it 
was  not  true  that  every  Breckenridge  Democrat 
was  a  secessionist,  but  it  was  true  that  every  seces- 
sionist was  a  Breckenridge  Democrat.  The  oppo- 
sition of  the  Buchanan  administration  to  Douglas 

298 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF    1860 

carried  many  Democrats,  North  and  South,  to  the 
support  of  Breckenridge.  Many  of  these  were 
Union  men,  and  at  the  final  issue  some  of  them 
remained  with  the  supporters  of  the  Union.  The 
Union  party  under  the  candidacy  of  Bell  stood  for 
what  its  name  indicates,  the  supreme  importance 
of  the  Union. 

Of  the  four  leading  parties,  three  maintained 
in  different  ways  the  doctrine  of  nationality.  In 
the  slave  states  the  chief  contest  was  between  Bell 
and  Breckenridge,  and  between  these  two  candi- 
dates the  Southern  vote  was  pretty  evenly  divided. 
Breckenridge  received  570,871,  and  Bell  515,973. 
But  Douglas  also  received  in  the  Southern  states 
^3,525  votes,  and  Lincoln  26,430.  Every  vote 
in  the  South  which  was  not  for  Breckenridge  was 
a  vote  for  the  Union,  and  it  was  so  understood. 
Only  in  four  states  did  Breckenridge  have  a  major- 
ity over  the  Bell  and  Douglas  vote  combined.  In 
Missouri  Lincoln  received  more  than  half  as  many 
votes  as  Breckenridge,  and  Bell  and  Douglas  each 
received  almost  twice  as  many.  From  the  analysis 
of  the  vote  it  would  seem  that  the  slave  states 
were  overwhelmingly  opposed  to  secession. 

In  the  North,  the  chief  contest  was  between 
Lincoln  and  Douglas,  yet  in  all  the  free  states 
there  were  both  Bell  and  Breckenridge  tickets,  the 
former  receiving  130,151  votes,  while  the  Breck- 
enridge vote  in  the  free  states  was  279,211.  A 
hundred  thousand  of  these  last  were  cast  in  Penn- 
sylvania, and  were  largely  due  to  the  personal  influ- 

299 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

ence  of  President  Buchanan.  The  Breckenridge 
vote  of  the  North  was  not  in  any  sense  a  secession 
vote  ;  it  was  simply  an  anti-Douglas  vote,  or  an 
administration  vote. 

Before  the  day  of  election  there  was  inaugurated 
a  movement  to  secure  the  defeat  of  Lincoln  by  a 
fusion  of  the  three  opposing  parties.  In  New 
York  and  New  Jersey  such  a  fusion  was  effected. 
In  three  other  Northern  states  the  Douglas  and 
Breckenridge  Democrats  put  in  nomination  a 
fusion  ticket.  But  the  fusion  movement  was  viewed 
with  disfavor  by  the  real  secession  party  of  the 
South.  They  much  preferred  the  election  of  Lin- 
coln to  any  other  candidate  except  Breckenridge. 
No  fusion  ticket  appeared  in  any  slave  state.  And, 
as  the  secession  party  expected  and  intended,  Lin- 
coln secured  a  majority  of  the  electoral  votes. 
That  vote  stood,  Lincoln  180,  Breckenridge  72, 
Bell  39,  and  Douglas  12.  Lincoln  won  a  plurality 
in  every  free  state  except  New  Jersey,  and  four 
Republican  electors  were  chosen  in  that  state, 
because  a  number  of  the  Douglas  Democrats 
refused  to  cast  their  votes  for  the  Breckenridge 
electors  on  the  fusion  ticket.  The  other  three 
electors  in  New  Jersey  were  for  Douglas.  Of  the 
popular  vote  Douglas  received  nearly  as  many 
votes  as  Bell  and  Breckenridge  together,  but  the 
votes  were  so  distributed  that  he  carried  only  the 
single  state  of  Missouri. 


300 


CHAPTER   XXII 

DRIFTING  INTO  WAR 

THE  die  was  cast.  A  President  had  been  elected 
for  whom  in  a  large  section  of  the  country  no  votes 
at  all  had  been  cast.  In  only  five  of  the  slave 
states  were  Republican  tickets  in  the  field,  while 
the  three  other  parties  were  represented  in  every 
state.  Since  throughout  the  South  a  "  Black  Re- 
publican "  had  come  to  be  regarded  as  identical 
with  a  rabid  and  malignant  abolitionist,  the  Repub- 
lican party  could  get  no  standing  in  the  plantation 
states,  where  the  mob  had  long  been  trained  to  visit 
summary  destruction  upon  all  abolition  movements 
emanating  from  the  North. 

'  The  assumption  as  a  political  axiom  that  the 
South  would  never  submit  to  the  dominion  of  an 
abolition  party  was  not  confined  to  the  slave  states. 
In  1856  Millard  Fillmore  argued,  as  the  candidate 
of  the  Whig  Union  party,  that  the  triumph  of  the 
Republican  party  would  inevitably  disrupt  the 
Union,  and  the  same  supposition  had  been  made 
the  stock  political  argument  of  all  parties  opposed 
to  the  Republicans.  Though  the  popular  vote  of 
1860  shows  a  large  majority  in  the  South  opposed 
301 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

to  the  secession  faction,  this  does  not  indicate  the 
sentiment  of  the  people  upon  the  assumption  that 
a  Republican.  President  would  be  elected.  The 
Mississippian  who  voted  for  Bell  expressed  oppo- 
sition to  the  Davis  secessionists,  and  equal  abhor- 
rence at  the  same  time  for  Black  Republicans. 
There  was  no  large  class  of  people  in  the  Southern 
states  who  discerned  any  difference  between  the 
policy  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  that  of  John 
Brown. 

The  convinced  secessionists  prayed  for  the  elec- 
tion of  Lincoln.  There  was  a  fear  lest  the  elec- 
tion should  go  to  the  House  of  Representatives 
and  Douglas  or  Bell  be  chosen  there.  In  such  an 
event  their  carefully  matured  plans  would  have 
been  doomed  to  failure.  Enthusiastic  demonstra- 
tions of  joy  were  made  in  Charleston  upon  the  news 
of  the  Republican  success.  Even  before  election 
day  the  Governor  had  called  together  the  South 
Carolina  legislature  to  inaugurate  the  necessary 
steps  for  withdrawal  from  the  Union  in  case  of 
Lincoln's  election.  A  convention  for  this  purpose 
was  set  for  December  17.  A  definite  plan  of 
action  had  been  agreed  upon  among  Southern  gov- 
ernors and  political  leaders.  South  Carolina  was 
to  lead  the  van  and  other  states  to  follow  one  by 
one.  Immediately,  while  Buchanan  was  still  Presi- 
dent, the  Union  was  to  be  dissolved  and  the  new 
Confederacy  set  up.  There  was  to  be  no  waiting 
to  discover  the  real  policy  of  the  new  administra- 
tion. The  people  were  to  act  while  their  blood  was 

302 


DRIFTING   INTO   WAR 

up.     It  was  felt  that,  if  they  did  not  act  then,  there 
was  a  possibility  that  they  might  not  act  at  all. 

The  reasons  for  secession  were  not  such  as  were 
fitted  to  carry  conviction  when  stated  openly  and 
coolly.  The  most  dearly  cherished  grievance  which 
admitted  of  definition  was  the  non-execution  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law.  Yet  in  the  convention  which 
took  South  Carolina  out  of  the  Union,  Robert  B. 
Rhett  declared  that  he  himself  doubted  the  consti- 
tutionality of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and  that  on 
the  floor  of  the  Senate  he  had  so  stated  at  the  time 
of  its  passage.  Secession,  he  said,  was  not  a  ques- 
tion of  a  day ;  it  was  not  to  be  inaugurated  because 
Lincoln  had  been  elected ;  on  the  contrary,  it  had 
been  gathering  strength  for  thirty  years.  His 
argument  was  this :  for  thirty  years  the  two  sec- 
tions had  been  taught  to  misunderstand  and  hate 
each  other ;  therefore,  dissolve  the  Union.  It  was 
a  baseless  argument.  To  a  man  really  sober  and 
in  his  right  mind  the  long-continued,  fruitless  effort 
to  dissolve  the  Union  would  have  presented  itself 
as  a  reason  why  such  effort  should  cease.  The 
keenest  reasoners  and  the  best  informed  among 
the  leaders  knew  that  the  secession  movement 
would  not  bear  discussion.  They  well  remembered 
the  miserable  failure  in  1850  of  the  efforts  to  get 
together  representative  assemblies  of  secessionists. 
They  had  not  forgotten  that,  so  soon  as  such  an 
assembly  seemed  to  have  been  gathered  and  had 
begun  to  deliberate,  its  members  became  trans- 
formed into  Unionists.  In  1860  and  1861  care  was 

3°3 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

taken  to  forestall  deliberation  by  action.  South 
Carolina  acted  in  December.  The  Gulf  states  fol- 
lowed, one  by  one,  in  January,  1861. 

There  were  not  wanting  men  of  influence  who 
were  opposed  to  secession.  Alexander  H.  Ste- 
phens, of  Georgia,  who  became  the  Vice-President 
of  the  Confederacy,  openly  opposed  the  action  de- 
termined upon.  He  said  that  the  election  of  a 
Republican  President  was  not  an  adequate  cause 
for  secession,  and  he  earnestly  sought  to  persuade 
the  convention  not  to  take  the  fatal  step ;  they 
should  wait,  he  said,  until  some  overt  act  of  the 
new  government  should  justify  their  withdrawal 
from  the  Union.  Yet  Stephens  always  held  that 
if  his  own  state  should  withdraw,  his  duty  would 
be  to  go  with  her. 

This  position  was  thoroughly  typical.  Multi- 
tudes had  doubts  as  to  the  propriety,  the  legality, 
and  the  wisdom  of  the  secession  movement.  Many 
had  decided  convictions  that  it  was  wrong.  Yet, 
in  the  final  decision,  they  nearly  all  determined  to 
stand  by  that  which  was  nearest  and  appealed  to 
them  most  strongly.  Robert  E.  Lee  was  one  who 
hesitated  long,  and  thoughtfully  balanced  the  rival 
claims.  At  one  time  he  seriously  contemplated 
fighting  for  the  Union,  yet  loyalty  to  his  state 
finally  triumphed. 

At  first  the  Union  cause  appeared  in  the  ascend- 
ant in  Virginia ;  but  the  state  was  at  last  carried 
into  secession  by  the  acts  of  the  states  farther 
south.  The  actual  dissolution  of  the  Union  began 

3°4 


DRIFTING   INTO   WAR 

some  two  months  before  the  date  for  the  inaugu- 
ration of  the  Republican  administration.  Andrew 
Jackson  was  not  President,  and  James  Buchanan, 
who  held  that  office,  had  in  his  Cabinet  men  who 
were  actively  engaged  in  promoting  disunion. 

President  Buchanan  himself  was  not  thus  en- 
gaged. Oh,  no,  he  believed  in  the  Union ;  he  did 
not  understand  that  a  state  had  a  right,  under  the 
Constitution,  to  make  itself  independent.  If  the 
South  withdrew  from  the  Union,  it  would  be,  in  his 
judgment,  an  act  of  revolution.  Yet  the  President 
also  held  that  the  general  government  had  no  right 
to  coerce  a  state.  It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine 
a  statesman  who  would  more  perfectly  fulfil  all  the 
demands  of  the  secession  faction  than  did  Presi- 
dent Buchanan.  Known  to  be  a  Union  man,  he 
served  to  allay  the  fears  of  the  people  while  the 
new  Confederacy  was  forming  and  seizing  upon 
the  property  belonging  to  the  United  States.  He 
refused  to  reenforce  the  forts  and  protect  the  arse- 
nals in  Southern  ports.  He  was  so  positive  that 
the  general  government  could  not  coerce  a  state, 
that  he  would  take  no  effective  means  to  guard 
federal  property  situated  within  the  borders  of 
a  state  which  had  withdrawn  from  the  Union. 
When  Southern  judges  of  United  States  courts 
resigned  their  offices  and  united  with  the  Confed- 
eracy, the  President  made  no  efforts  to  replace 
them.  By  disloyal  Cabinet  officers  military  offi- 
cers and  military  property  had  been  placed  with 
careful  reference  to  strengthening  and  advancing 
x  305 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

the  secession  plot.  By  continued  administrative 
acquiescence,  the  Confederacy  was  encouraged 
and  nursed  into  assured  existence. 

But  the  President  did  more  than  simply  to 
acquiesce  in  the  measures  of  secession  and  spo- 
liation. In  his  message  to  Congress  in  December, 
1860,  he  charged  the  entire  blame  of  the  threat- 
ened disruption  of  the  Union  upon  the  abolition- 
ists. A  quarter  of  a  century  of  violent  agitation 
had,  he  said,  awakened  in  the  mind  of  the  slave 
the  hope  of  freedom  and  in  the  minds  of  Southern 
matrons  the  constant  dread  of  insurrection  and 
massacre.  This,  the  President  alleged,  was  suffi- 
cient to  justify  revolution.  He  expressed  an  opin- 
ion, however,  that  the  time  had  not  yet  arrived  for 
that  fatal  event ;  but  Southern  leaders  were  never- 
theless sure  that  the  set  time  had  come.  Thus  the 
President  of  the  United  States  justified  the  disunion- 
ists,  and  by  means  of  his  official  attitude  toward  the 
right  of  coercion  furnished  them  the  much  desired 
opportunity  for  carrying  their  plans  into  effect. 
Before  the  Republicans  could  get  control  of  the 
executive  offices  the  ideal  independent  Confeder- 
acy of  the  Southern  states  was  an  accomplished 
fact. 

The  Republicans  themselves  did  not  quite  know 
what  to  do  with  a  state  which  had  already  peace- 
fully severed  its  connection  with  the  Union.  Had 
they  been  in  power  two  months  earlier,  their  path 
would  have  been  clear :  they  would  have  protected 
and  strengthened  every  available  agency  of  the 

306 


DRIFTING   INTO   WAR 

general  government  within  the  borders  of  the  dis- 
affected states  ;  they  would  have  drawn  a  clear, 
practical  distinction  between  the  coercing  of  a 
state  and  the  enforcement  of  the  laws  of  the 
United  States  within  the  states.  Buchanan  drew 
from  his  premise  the  conclusion  that  the  United 
States  government  could  not  enforce  its  own  laws 
within  a  state,  when  the  people  of  the  state  ob- 
jected. President  Jackson  held,  without  the  slight- 
est doubt,  a  contrary  view.  He  was  ready  at  all 
times  to  enforce  United  States  laws  and  to  collect 
federal  taxes,  and  he  was  troubled  by  no  fine-spun 
theory  about  coercing  states. 

There  were  many  loyal  persons  who  had  logical 
difficulties  about  using  force  against  a  state  gov- 
ernment. Some  of  the  fanatically  logical  were 
very  sure  that  a  state  could  not  be  coerced,  and 
were  at  the  same  time  equally  sure  that  federal 
laws  could  be  enforced  within  the  borders  of  the 
state.  The  logical  difficulty  arises  from  definition. 
An  American  state  is  an  automatic  common- 
wealth exercising  independent  powers.  When  a 
state  is  coerced  it  loses  the  essential  qualities 
involved  in  the  definition.  Cicero  proved,  by  a 
similar  process  of  reasoning,  that  friendship  was 
superior  to  kinship.  Kinsfolk,  he  said,  often  hate 
each  other  :  friends  never  hate ;  if  they  hate,  they 
cease  to  be  friends.  A  state  cannot  be  coerced ; 
the  moment  it  is  coerced  it  ceases  to  be  a  state. 
If  President  Buchanan  had  taken  vigorous  meas- 
ures to  enforce  federal  laws  in  all  parts  of  the 

3°7 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

country,  he  might  have  been  excused  from  devel- 
oping an  aggressive  policy  for  the  coercion  of 
states.  The  President  denied  that  a  state  had  a 
right,  under  the  Constitution,  of  peaceful  secession, 
while  granting  that  it  did  have  a  right  to  inaugu- 
rate a  revolution.  Then,  according  to  the  Presi- 
dent's own  theory,  it  was  his  duty  to  enforce  federal 
law.  Yet  he  acted,  in  fact,  as  if  he  believed  in  the 
right  of  peaceable  secession. 

According  to  Southern  interpretation,  the  Con- 
stitution guaranteed  to  each  state  the  right  to  sever 
its  connection  with  the  federal  government,  and 
were  that  right  exercised,  it  would  be  a  violation 
of  the  Constitution  for  the  federal  government  to 
make  war  upon  the  state  or  to  seek  to  compel  by 
force  a  return  to  the  Union.  All  through  our  his- 
tory there  had  been  much  doubt  on  this  point; 
there  never  had  been  a  time  in  which  a  menace 
of  disunion  might  not  be  discovered  somewhere. 
There  was  and  always  had  been  serious  doubt  as 
to  what  ought  to  be  done  in  case  a  state  or  a  group 
of  states  should  actually  withdraw  and  attempt  to 
set  up  an  independent  sovereign  State.  On  this 
question  there  was  in  1860  no  previous  experience. 
Many  of  the  Southern  leaders  actually  believed 
that  their  vie\v  would  be  accepted  by  the  nation, 
and  that  there  would  be  no  serious  war.  Yet  they 
held  that  the  surest  way  to  achieve  peaceable  inde- 
pendence was  to  put  on  a  bold  front,  to  place 
each  state  on  a  strong  military  basis  and  make  it 
evident  that  there  was  to  be  no  retreat,  that  the 

308 


DRIFTING   INTO   WAR 

entire  people  of  the  seceding  states  were  united 
and  determined. 

It  was  not  at  all  strange  that  the  seceders  should 
believe  that  their  right  to  form  an  independent  con- 
federacy would  not  be  resisted  by  armed  force. 
The  question  of  secession  had  been  constantly 
debated  for  thirty  years ;  it  had  been  held  up  as 
the  final  and  sure  resort  for  an  aggrieved  section. 
Now,  for  the  first  time,  in  an  offended  section  the 
people  were  united.  A  political  campaign  had 
taken  place  in  which  a  specific  event  had  been 
designated  as  full  justification  for  disunion,  and, 
upon  the  occurrence  of  that  event,  a  group  of 
states  had  torn  the  nation  in  two. 

The  Republicans  had  formulated  no  clearly 
defined  policy  as  to  the  treatment  of  a  seceding 
state.  During  the  campaign,  it  was  to  the  interest 
of  candidates  to  make  light  of  the  threats  of  seces- 
sion, to  treat  it  as  an  old  story.  Republicans,  too, 
had  very  generally  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  better  way  to  deal  with  the  disloyal  South  was 
to  put  on  a  bold  front,  to  show  no  wavering. 
Kansas  had  been  rescued  from  the  slave  power  by 
a  few  determined  men.  There  was  no  occasion  to 
display  the  white  feather. 

A  few  days  after  the  election,  in  November, 
1860,  Horace  Greeley,  in  a  notable  editorial  in 
the  Tribune,  outlined  a  policy  for  the  party.  He 
would  have  it  seek  in  all  right  ways  to  persuade 
the  South  not  to  secede ;  yet  if,  after  due  deliber- 
ation, the  people  of  the  Gulf  states  should  decide 
309 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

to  withdraw  from  the  Union,  he  would  advise  the 
Republicans  to  let  them  go  in  peace.  This  view 
found  expression  in  other  influential  Republican 
newspapers.  This,  it  will  be  remembered,  was 
before  any  overt  act  of  secession  had  taken  place, 
and  its  tendency  was  to  confirm  the  seceders  in 
their  general  expectation  that  separation  would  be 
peacefully  accomplished.  To  this  end  it  was  all 
the  more  desirable  that  the  people  of  the  seceding 
states  should  appear  thoroughly  united.  As  to 
whether  the  separation  should  preferably  be  with 
war  or  without  war,  they  were  of  course  agreed ; 
they  favored  peaceable  secession.  But  to  make 
peaceable  secession  doubly  sure  they  would  place 
themselves  in  a  thorough  state  of  preparation  to 
defend  themselves  in  case  war  should  spring  up. 
It  was  at  this  point  that  the  two  sections  fatally 
misunderstood  each  other.  The  secessionist  looked 
upon  the  North  as  a  foreign  country.  It  was  no 
great  shock  to  the  feelings  of  a  South  Carolinian 
when,  in  December,  1860,  all  the  newspapers  trans- 
ferred to  the  columns  of  foreign  intelligence  the 
news  from  Washington  and  New  York.  To  them 
the  people  of  those  parts  had  become  foreigners, 
and  they  now  began  to  place  themselves  in  an  atti- 
tude of  defence  against  all  foreigners.  But  the 
people  of  the  North  had  no  such  feelings.  They 
had  been  sorely  tried  by  the  conduct  of  some  of 
their  fellow-countrymen,  but  those  were  erring 
brothers,  they  were  not  foreigners.  All  were 
Americans  together,  and  all  owed  a  common  love 

310 


DRIFTING   INTO   WAR 

and  common  duty  to  their  common  country.  The 
North  had  no  adequate  conception  of  the  extent 
of  the  estrangement  of  feeling  in  the  South,  and 
no  conception  of  the  real  strength  of  the  sentiment 
against  the  Union. 

During  the  three  months  from  December  to 
March,  while  the  new  Confederacy  was  being 
organized,  there  appeared  in  Congress,  in  the  bor- 
der states,  and  in  the  North,  multitudes  of  propo- 
sitions for  compromise  and  adjustment.  Some  of 
the  Northern  states  repealed  their  personal  liberty 
laws,  others  modified  them,  and  a  conference  of 
Republicans  gave  assurance  to  Unionists  of  the 
South  that  all  of  these  obnoxious  unconstitutional 
statutes  in  Northern  states  would  be  repealed  if  by 
so  doing  the  progress  of  secession  might  be  stayed. 
Many  Republicans  were  anxious  by  some  effective 
act  to  convince  the  South  that  they  had  no  hostile 
intent  against  their  domestic  institutions.  Repub- 
lican senators,  among  whom  was  William  H.  Sew- 
ard,  agreed  to  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution 
which  would  effectually  guard  the  institution  of 
slavery  within  the  states.  Seward  and  other  Re- 
publicans also  agreed  to  consent  to  legalize  slavery 
in  all  territory  south  of  the  old  Missouri  Compromise 
line. 

Pacific  propositions  were  brought  forward  in 
various  forms,  and  they  proceeded  from  many 
different  sources.  No  single  measure  served  to 
fix  the  attention  and  command  the  assent  of  the 
entire  nation.  The  most  conspicuous  was  the  so- 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

called  Crittenden  Compromise,  introduced  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  by  Senator  Crittenden 
of  Kentucky.  It  proposed  six  amendments  to  the 
Constitution,  making  slavery  in  the  states  more  se- 
cure and  extending  slavery  into  the  territory  south 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line.  The  measure 
was  debated  and  considered  in  committee,  but 
finally  failed  to  receive  the  approval  of  the  Senate. 
All  these  efforts  and  suggestions  served  to  hold 
the  attention  of  the  Union  people  and  the  doubt- 
ful minds  while  the  Gulf  states  were  busily  engaged 
in  organizing  and  compacting  their  new  govern- 
ment. The  leaders  of  the  Confederacy  cared 
nothing  for  proposals  for  compromise,  save  as 
they  might  serve  the  temporary  purpose  of  pro- 
moting delay  among  the  enemies  of  their  plans. 

Upon  the  breaking  up  of  the  old  parties  there 
was  general  political  confusion  ;  and  in  a  time  of 
confusion  the  few  whose  minds  are  made  up,  the 
few  who  have  established  and  unchangeable  con- 
victions, have  a  decided  advantage  over  the  un- 
settled multitude.  In  South  Carolina  there  were 
old-time  secessionists  who  had  waited  long  for  the 
opportunity  to  put  their  theories  into  practical 
form.  In  the  time  of  doubt  and  uncertainty  these 
were  ready  to  act,  and  they  acted  in  such  a  way 
as  to  draw  to  themselves  the  great  body  of  the 
people  of  the  slave  states. 

In  the  North  there  were  likewise  a  few  who  had 
long  held  convictions  upon  national  questions  which 
were  equally  clear  and  which  would  be  maintained 

312 


DRIFTING   INTO   WAR 

with  equal  fidelity.  These  believed  that  slavery 
was  a  crime,  a  great  national  sin,  and  that  all  com- 
promise with  slavery  was  itself  sinful.  There  were 
multitudes  of  Northern  men  besides  who  believed 
with  increasing  assurance  that  all  compromising 
measures  did  but  tend  to  aggravate  the  evil  which 
they  were  intended  to  mitigate,  and  this  was  a  view 
which  was  continually  gathering  adherents. 

Had  there  been  in  the  land  only  those  with  the 
extreme  views,  there  might  have  been  a  peaceable 
dissolution  of  the  Union.  The  conflict  of  arms 
came  on  gradually  under  the  temporizing  policy  of 
Buchanan,  followed  by  the  considerate  policy  of 
Lincoln.  Lincoln  was  at  first  ready  to  go  to 
almost  any  length  to  convince  the  South  that 
no  hostile  action  toward  any  Southern  institution 
was  intended.  He  was  ready  to  exhaust  the 
powers  of  his  office  in  endeavors  to  secure  to 
the  slaveholder  his  every  right.  He  purposed  to 
make  every  legal  right  of  the  aggrieved  class  as 
secure  as  it  had  been  in  the  hands  of  any  previous 
President.  Even  Buchanan  and  his  associates  had 
maintained  and  defended  three  United  States  forts 
within  the  borders  of  three  seceding  states.  With- 
out raising  any  new  question  about  the  power  of 
the  federal  government  to  coerce  a  state,  it  was 
quite  in  order  for  Mr.  Lincoln  to  continue  the 
policy  of  defending  the  United  States  property. 
It  was  as  the  President  was  in  pursuance  of  this 
policy  that  the  state  of  South  Carolina  was  led  to 
make  a  terrific  and  successful  attack  upon  a  United 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

States  fort  in  Charleston  harbor.  This  had  all  the 
appearance  of  a  civil  war  actually  begun,  and 
the  facts  were  such  as  to  make  it  quite  natural  for 
the  Unionists  of  the  North  to  believe  that  it  was 
begun  by  a  hostile  act  of  a  rebellious  state ;  while 
it  was  equally  natural  for  the  South  to  hold  that 
the  state  was  but  defending  its  own  against  the 
evident  intention  of  the  North  to  subjugate  its 
rightful  authority,  —  quite  easy  to  believe  that  the 
states  were  being  coerced. 

If  the  United  States  could  defend  property 
against  a  hostile  attack  of  a  state,  it  could  hardly 
be  denied  the  right  to  organize  a  force  to  regain 
possession  of  property  forcibly  seized.  Under  the 
circumstances  it  was  sadly  easy  to  drift  into  a  state 
of  civil  war  without  really  raising  the  question  as 
to  whether  it  would  be  a  proper  thing  for  the  fed- 
eral government  to  invade  South  Carolina  and  at 
the  point  of  the  bayonet  compel  the  state  legisla- 
ture to  rescind  the  ordinance  of  secession. 

The  Southern  leaders  believed  themselves  to  be 
guided  by  exact  and  irrefutable  logic.  They  were 
trained  in  the  school  of  the  great  Calhoun,  and  they 
never  for  one  moment  doubted  the  accuracy  of  the 
ratiocination  which  brought  them  to  the  justifica- 
tion of  secession.  The  people  accepted  the  guid- 
ance of  their  chiefs  and  adopted  their  dogma,  not 
as  the  outcome  of  their  own  logical  thinking,  but 
as  embodying  their  local  prejudice.  Thus  the 
South  was  united.  The  logical  minds  were  con- 
vinced by  clearly  defined  propositions;  the  senti- 


DRIFTING   INTO   WAR 

mental  ones  acted  with  them  through  long-standing 
habit  and  prejudice. 

The  South,  led  by  logic  supported  by  sentiment, 
was  confronted  by  a  North  which  was  dominated 
by  sentiment,  so  far  as  concerned  the  immediate 
question  in  dispute.  Thirty  years  before,  the  gifted 
Webster  had  met  the  full  charge  of  the  Calhoun 
reasoning  and  had  riddled  the  arguments  which 
were  now  made  to  support  the  Southern  contention. 
To  the  North  Webster  had  settled  the  great  ques- 
tion for  all  time.  His  powerful  speeches  had  been 
enlivened  by  bursts  of  patriotic  sentiment,  and 
these  passages  had  found  place  in  the  school 
readers  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Mississippi. 
Thousands  of  schoolboys  had  committed  them  to 
memory  and  spouted  the  moving  oratory  to  respon- 
sive audiences,  until  a  whole  generation  had  become 
thoroughly  permeated  with  the  feeling  which  they 
expressed  and  fostered.  Few  knew  or  cared 
whether  Calhoun 's  logic  had  actually  been  over- 
come by  logic ;  it  was  enough  that  it  had  been 
overthrown  by  sentiment.  Not  until  the  terrors 
of  war  were  before  them  was  there  a  general  dis- 
position among  the  Northern  people  seriously  to 
engage  in  the  painful  process  of  reasoning  out 
their  position. 

Webster  had  carried  conviction  to  his  hearers 
when  he  intimated  that  only  the  dangerous  man, 
only  one  who  was  actuated  by  an  evil  spirit,  would 
sit  down  and  coolly  calculate  what  would  happen 
after  the  glorious  Union  had  been  destroyed.  The 


POLITICAL   PARTIES 

people  of  the  North  had  not  reasoned  upon  that 
question;  they  were  wholly  unsophisticated.  When, 
therefore,  they  were  confronted  with  the  fact  of 
the  actual  withdrawal  of  states  from  the  Union, 
their  minds  were  singularly  free  from  any  disturb- 
ing theories.  But,  being  in  the  main  united  in 
sentiment,  and  being  by  the  march  of  events  sud- 
denly compelled  to  think,  it  was  not  difficult  for 
them  to  reach  a  nearly  uniform  conclusion. 

During  the  early  weeks  of  the  year  1861  a 
questioner,  going  to  and  fro  in  the  Northern  land 
and  walking  up  and  down  in  it,  among  the  common, 
plain  people,  would  have  encountered  a  remarkable 
unanimity  of  thought  respecting  the  national  situ- 
ation, coming  from  a  thousand  different  indepen- 
dent sources.  Even  the  very  forms  of  expression 
he  would  have  found  to  be  strikingly  similar,  and 
the  arguments  identical.  This  was,  in  substance, 
the  prevailing  view :  If  the  South  is  allowed  to 
form  an  independent  State,  it  will  be  a  State  un- 
friendly to  the  United  States.  We  shall  then  have 
States  both  north  and  south  of  us  which  will  be 
foreign  and  probably  hostile.  If,  moreover,  seces- 
sion begins,  it  is  not  likely  to  stop  with  a  Southern 
Confederacy.  The  Pacific  states  are  almost  sure 
to  think  it  to  their  interest  to  become  independent. 
Having  gone  so  far,  disintegration  is  likely  to  con- 
tinue. The  States  in  North  America  would  become 
like  those  of  South  America,  numerous  and  often 
hostile,  and  the  result  would  be  a  condition  of  per- 
petual wars  and  conflicts.  We  will  not  be  so  weak 

316 


DRIFTING   INTO   WAR 

and  unwise  as  to  avoid  war  by  allowing  the  South 
to  withdraw.  By  yielding  now  we  shall  be  in 
danger  of  transmitting  to  our  children  a  political 
condition  in  which  a  state  of  war  will  be  perpetual. 
The  shorter,  the  surer,  and  the  easier  way  to  in- 
sure a  state  of  peace  and  happiness  is  to  preserve 
the  Union  intact.  By  arguments  like  these  the 
logically  inclined  reached  the  conclusion  that  the 
duty  of  the  hour  was  to  resist  the  South  at  any 
cost  for  the  saving  of  the  Union.  There  was  little 
or  no  appeal  to  history,  no  use  of  any  abstruse 
theory  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Constitution.  The 
effective  arguments  were  wholly  practical,  growing 
out  of  present  and  probable  conditions. 


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2  vols.  New  York,  1883. 

Calhoun,  John  C.  By  Dr.  H.  Von  Hoist.  American  States- 
man Series.  Boston  and  New  York,  1883. 

Calhoun,  Works  of.  Edited  by  R.  K.  Crabbe.  6  vols.  New 
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Clay,  Henry,  Life  and  Speeches  of.  By  C.  Colton.  6  vols. 
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326 


INDEX 


"Abhorrers,"  4. 

Abolitionists,  88,  89;  had  victory 
forced  upon  them  by  theij  ene- 
mies, no;  formed  no  plots,  113 ; 
partial  to  negroes,  114;  political 
action  of,  114;  vote  cast  by,  in 
1840,  115;  in  1848,  116;  favored 
the  Union,  129;  relations  of,  to 
Whig  party,  134,  149,  150;  and 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  155, 156, 
158;  came  to  hate  the  South, 
196 ;  relation  of  Lincoln  to,  279. 

Adams,  John,  describes  Caucus, 

35- 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  33,  36. 

Adams,  Samuel,  31. 

Albany  Regency,  70. 

Alien  and  Sedition  Laws,  104. 

American  or  Know-nothing  party, 
78,  80,  179-181, 183,  225,  283. 

Anarchist,  views  of  the,  51. 

Annexation  of  Texas,  94,  95, 98. 

Anti-federalists,  opposed  adoption 
of  the  Constitution,  identified 
with  Republicans,  46;  first  con- 
servative, then  radical,  47. 

Anti-masons,  30,  36,  176. 

Anti-Nebraska  men,  191. 

"  Barnburners,"  100;  nominate  Van 
Buren,  101,  174. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  181,  210. 

"  Beecher's  Bibles,"  211. 

Bell,  Senator,  from  Tennessee, 
votes  with  Free-soilers,  192  ;  sup- 
ports Douglas,  258 ;  candidate 
of  Union  party  for  the  presi- 


dency, 1860,  296 ;  votes  for,  299, 
300. 

Benton,  Thomas  H.,  127,  135,  223. 

Birney,  James  G.,  97,  248. 

"  Black  Abolitionist,"  197. 

"  Black  Republican,"  197,  301. 

"  Bleeding  Kansas,"  made  chief 
campaign  issue  in  1856,  221. 

Breckenridge,  of  Kentucky,  candi- 
date for  presidency,  1860,  297; 
votes  for,  299,  300. 

Brown,  John,  murders  proslavery 
settlers  in  Kansas,  218;  in  prayer- 
meeting,  Grinnell,  Iowa,  219;  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  276-282. 

Bryan,  William  J.,  49. 

Buchanan,  James,  Democratic  can- 
didate, 218  ;  vote  for,  228 ;  Kan- 
sas, policy  of,  236 ;  influenced  by 
Dred  Scott  decision,  236,  238, 
239;  relations  to  secession  of, 

305-309- 
Buffalo,  convention  of,  1848,  101, 

221. 

Bufort,  Colonel,  of  Alabama,  raises 
troops  for  Kansas  war,  209,  211, 
215. 

Burke,  Edmund,  5. 

Buslmell,  Horace,  remarks  on 
spoils  system,  65. 

Cabinet,  English,  14,  17, 18,  19,  20, 
21,  59, 60,  63, 64, 65 ;  under  group 
system,  14,  21. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  89,  98,  99,  141; 
relation  of,  to  Dred  Scott  deci- 
sion, 232. 


327 


328 


INDEX 


California,  77,  122,  123,   124,  127, 

138,  153- 

Cass,  Lewis,  100,  184,  185. 
Catholics,   dread  of,  in   America, 

79- 

Caucus,  origin  of  term,  31. 

Caucus,  congressional  nominating, 
origin  of,  1800,  25  ;  discontinued, 
1824,  28,  29,  30;  opposition  to, 
27,  28. 

Caucus,  legislative,  28,  29,  35. 

Cavaliers  and  Roundheads,  3. 

Charles  II.,  3. 

Charleston,  convention  of,  1860, 
286-290. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  192. 

Church,  as  a  political  element,  12, 
16,  17,  44;  divided  on  slavery 
question,  194;  teaches  doctrine 
of  hate,  211. 

Churchill,  Lord  Randolph,  6. 

Civil  Service  Reform  League,  169, 
171. 

Civil  War,  the,  44,  45, 47,  52,  53, 54, 
56,  74,  75,  76,  89;  causes  of,  102 
-118;  might  have  been  pre- 
vented, 133 ;  party  names  affected 
by,  168. 

Civil  war,  in  Kansas,  203-220; 
threatened  in  Congress,  283. 

Clay,  Cassius  M.,  134. 

Clay,  Henry,  127,  128,  134,  136, 
137,  140,  141,  143,  145. 

Clayton,  Senator,  of  Delaware,  206. 

Clinton,  De  Witt,  27,  35. 

Coercion  of  a  state,  305,  307,  308. 

Coffin,  Levi,  136. 

Colonies  in  America,  government 
of,  23 ;  become  states,  24,  32. 

Commons,  House  of,  3,  16,  17,  18, 
19. 

Compromise  of  1850,  128,  129, 130, 
131,  159,  184,  188,189.  " 

Compromise,  Missouri.  See  Mis- 
souri Compromise. 

Confederacy,  the  Southern,  305, 
306. 


Conservative  party,  5,  20,  43,  44. 

Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
25.  47.  55.  5s :  adoption  of,  46 ; 
amendments  to,  25,  46;  inter- 
pretation of,  as  to  right  of  seces- 
sion, 308. 

Constitution,  English,  48. 

Constitutional  Union  party,  296. 

Convention.  See  National  Nomi- 
nating Convention. 

Convention,  local,  36. 

Cotton  gin  invented,  105. 

Crawford,  William  HM  28. 

• 

Darwin,  his  Origin  of  Species,  84. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  268,  his  resolu- 
tions in  the  Senate,  285. 

Declaration  of  Independence,  199, 
270. 

Democracy,  or  the  democratic 
state,  i,  2,  7,  9,  12,  22,  64,  253- 

257- 

Democratic  clubs,  32,  75. 

Democratic  party,  origin  of,  33 ;  led 
by  Jackson  and  Van  Buren,  34, 
36;  platform  of,  1856;  radical 
and  conservative  wings  of,  in 
1896,  49,  50;  development  of, 
38 ;  survived  all  changes,  75 ; 
favored  annexation  of  Texas,  94, 
95;  faithful  to  the  South,  120; 
responsible  for  war  with  Mexico, 
141 ;  platforms  of,  146,  147 ;  re- 
joices over  Fugitive  Slave  Act, 
160;  policy  of,  dictated  by  South, 
184;  becomes  committed  both  to 
slavery  and  state  rights,  199; 
nominates  Buchanan,  218  ;  cam- 
paign of,  in  1856,  224-228;  pe- 
culiar prestige  and  permanency 
of,  233;  affected  by  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  235 ;  tried  to  na- 
tionalize proslavery  sentiment, 
262 ;  integrity  of,  necessary  to  the 
Union,  274;  divided  at  Charles- 
ton convention,  287;  vote  of  its 
two  branches  in  1860,  299,  300. 


INDEX 


329 


Democratic  Review,  89. 

Despotism,  characteristics  of,  i,  6; 
and  modern  parties,  6,  7,  8,  9, 
68 ;  a  conspiracy,  unstable,  57 ; 
opposed  to  science,  87  ;  principles 
of,  in  American  politics,  254,  257. 

District  of  Columbia,  114,  128. 

Divine  right  of  kings,  3,  6. 

Dixon,  Senator,  190. 

"  Doughface,"  90. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  introduces 
Nebraska  Bill,  185;  opposes  Le- 
compton  constitution,  240,  242; 
growing  popularity  of,  245  ;  leader 
of  Free-soil  forces,  247,  258 ;  his 
debate  with  Lincoln,  262-268 ; 
personal  triumph  of,  273;  op- 
posed Jefferson  Davis,  285  ;  vote 
received  by,  in  1860,  299,  300. 

Dred  Scott  decision,  229-239;  did 
not  help  the  South,  261. 

Elijah  the  Tishbite,  42. 

England,  political  parties  in,  3,  4,  5, 
6,  13,  15,  16,  17,  18,  19,  20,  44,  58, 
59, 60, 63 ;  spoils  system  in,  59, 66. 

Era  of  good  feeling,  93. 

Executive,  choosing  of,  in  the 
United  States,  24-26. 

Fabian  Society,  9. 

Faction,  characteristic  of  despot- 
isms, i ;  relation  of,  to  political 
parties,  4-17;  relation  of,  to 
spoils  system  in  England,  59 ;  in 
American  cities,  68. 

Federal  party,  27,  28,  33,  34,  38,  46, 
48,  62,  75. 

Federal  system,  a  compromise,  51 ; 
distribution  of  powers  and  duties 
in,  45 ;  its  relation  to  parties  in 
America,  47. 

Fillmore,  Millard,  130, 225, 226, 301. 

Fire-eaters,  Southern,  90,  158,  256. 

Free-soil  party,  80,  101,  115,  150, 
174 ;  in  Kansas,  207. 

Fremont,  John  C.,  218,  223. 


French  Revolution,  31,  48,  106, 
107. 

Fugitive  Slave  Law,  drawn  to  please 
secessionists,  136;  violently  op- 
posed, 155-157;  could  not  be 
enforced,  157;  in  Kansas,  206; 
made  slave  property  less  secure, 
260 ;  unconstitutional,  303. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  88,  106, 

108,  109,  279. 
Geary,   Governor,  third  territorial 

governor  of  Kansas,  227. 
George  I.,  18. 
George  III.,  4,  19,  20. 
Germany,  9,  14. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  author  of  Irish 

Home  Rule  Bill,  293. 
"Gold  Democrats,"  171. 
Greeks,  their  view  of  the  State, 

SL 

Greeley,  Horace,  250,  309. 
Guelphs  and  Ghibellines,  12,  13. 

Hanover,  House  of,  4. 

Harper's  Ferry,  John  Brown  raid  at. 
See  John  Brown. 

Hartford  Convention,  1815, 129. 

Haziel,  42. 

Hebrew  prophets,  9,  10. 

Helper's  Impending  Crisis,  213,  255, 
294, 

Higginson,  T.  W.,  279. 

"  Higher  Law,"  the,  115  ;  Seward's 
doctrine  of,  repudiated  by  Lin- 
coln, 279. 

Indianapolis  Convention,  1896,  49. 

Internal  improvements,  148. 

"  Irrepressible  Conflict,"  the,  268. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  Democratic 
leader,  34,  52;  opposed  United 
States  Bank,  53 ;  introduced 
spoils  system,  59,  60,  65;  a 
"New  York  Politician,"  70;  his 
treatment  of  nullifiers,  143. 


330 


INDEX 


Jacobin  clubs,  31. 

James  II.,  3,  4. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  organized  Re- 
publican party,  32  ;  both  a  Demo- 
crat and  a  Republican,  33 ;  a 
radical,  49 ;  organized  rural  vot- 
ers, 52 ;  opposed  to  slavery,  96 ; 
opposed  centralization,  102,  103; 
divided  against  himself,  197-200. 

Kansas,  open  to  slavery,  140 ;  battle- 
ground for  slavery,  193;  war  in, 
204-218 ;  improved  conditions  in, 
227. 

Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  185,  191, 
203,  232,  243. 

Know-nothing  party,  78,  79,  80, 177, 
179,  180,  203,  225.  2-  <v  ;*> 

Laissez  faire,  49,  50. 
Lane,  "Jim,"  227. 
Lawrence,  Kansas,  215. 
Lecompton  constitution,  238,  241, 

242,  243. 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  304. 
Liberal  and  Conservative  parties, 

5.20. 

Liberator,  the,  88,  106,  109,  115. 

Liberty  party,  97, 100, 115, 116,  172- 
174. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  his  belief  in  an 
approaching  crisis,  236;  as  a 
typical  Democrat,  247-257 ;  op- 
poses Greeley's  policy  as  to  seces- 
sion, 250;  attitude  of,  on  slavery 
question,  249-252;  "house  di- 
vided against  itself"  speech  of, 
263;  his  debate  with  Douglas, 
264-268 ;  candidate  for  the  presi- 
dency, 296;  his  policy  towards 
seceding  states,  313,  314. 

Lines,  Charles  B.,  210. 

Lords,  House  of,  18. 

"  Lost  Cause,"  75. 

Louisiana  Purchase,  96,  185,  198. 

Lovejoy,  Elijah,  no. 

Luther,  Martin,  16. 


Machiavelli,  Niccolo,  86. 

Madison,  James,  35,  58,  65,  233. 

Magna  Car  fa,  2,  15. 

Maine  Liquor  Law,  79. 

Mexican  War,  93,  95,  98,  117,  145. 

Mexico  abolishes  slavery,  94, 153. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  78. 

Missourians  in  Kansas,  194,  205, 
214,  215. 

Missouri  Compromise,  93,  97,  99, 
112,  128, 139, 140;  repealed,  190; 
theory  that  it  was  always  uncon- 
stitutional, 192. 

Mohammedans,  attitude  of,  toward 
Christians,  195. 

Morgan,  William,  176. 

National  Intelligencer,  203. 

National  Nominating  Convention, 
suggested,  27 ;  first  held  by  Anti- 
masons,  30,  37 ;  origin  of,  30 
seq. ;  the  first  Whig,  34 ;  first 
Democratic,  37,  49 ;  Republican, 
38. 

National  Republican  party,  called 
Federalists,  33 ;  first  national  con- 
vention of,  30 ;  supports  protec- 
tion, 93 ;  takes  name  Whig,  94 ; 
farors  United  States  Bank,  144. 

Nebraska  Bill,  introduced,  185; 
becomes  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill, 
191. 

New  England  Emigrant  Aid  So- 
ciety, 193. 

New  Mexico,  122,  124,  128,  138, 
184,  185,  188;  slavery  legalized 
in,  245,  259. 

Newspaper  in  political  develop- 
ment, 77. 

New  York  Independent,  the,  181, 207. 

New  York  Observer,  the,  88. 

Nihilists,  31. 

Norman  Conquest,  15. 

Nullifiers,  98,  268,  281. 

Omnibus  Bill,  128,  154. 
Orangemen,  178. 


INDEX 


331 


Ordinance  of  1787,  96,  232. 
Origin  of  Species,  Darwin's,  84. 

Parliament,  the  English,  3,  4,  64. 

Party  issues.  40  seq.;  central  vs. 
local  government,  46 ;  class 
differences,  52 ;  the  tariff,  53 ; 
North  vs.  South,  54;  slavery  in 
territories,  191 ;  of  the  war, 
269. 

Party  machinery,  modern,  37  seq., 
55,  69,  80,  81,  82,  167,  181. 

Party  system,  simplest  form  of,  15, 
21 ;  between  Mexican  and  Civil 
wars,  74;  unifying  power  of,  75, 
77 ;  importance  of  the  American, 
162-182. 

Patriot  societies,  31,  32,  75. 

Pennington  of  New  Jersey  made 
speaker,  283. 

"  Petitioners  and  Abhorrers,"  4. 

Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  u. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  184,  209. 

Political  parties,  in  democratic 
countries  only,  i ;  relation  to  po- 
litical factions,  6-9,  13,  to  reform 
associations,  9-11,  to  class  in- 
terests, n;  defined,  13;  form  of, 
in  different  states,  13 ;  group 
system  of,  13,  14,  21,  167;  in 
England,  15-21 ;  in  Switzerland, 
21 ;  organized  in  America,  23, 
24;  derived  from  local  clubs, 31 ; 
American  system  of,  completed 
1852,  issues  of,  40-55 ;  conserva- 
tive vs.  radical,  42;  central  vs. 
local  government  in,  46,47  ;  class 
differences  in,  52;  protective 
tariff  in,  53;  in  North  and  South, 
54;  relation  of,  to  spoils  system 
in  England,  59,  63,  64;  in  Amer- 
ica, 61-73;  a  bond  of  union, 
63 ;  destroyed  by  spoils  system, 
69;  from  rural  standpoint,  66- 
72 ;  first  affected  by  slavery,  5,  7  ; 
appear  firmly  established,  1849, 
119;  two  great,  1850,  133;  pro- 


mote forgiveness  of  sins,  150 ;  a 

substitute  for  civil  war,  165. 
"Poor white  trash,"  114. 
Popular  initiative,  22. 
Popular  Science  Monthly,  50. 
Popular  sovereignty,  186,  191. 
Populists,  171. 
Pottawatomie,    massacre   of,    218, 

219. 

Prohibition,  79,  170, 171. 
Prophets,  41,  42. 
Proportional  representation,  22. 
Protective    tariff,    53,    54,   56,    79, 

148. 
Puritan  Revolution,  17. 

Railways,  effects  of,  on  politics,  78. 

Reeder,  Andrew  H.,  first  governor 
of  Kansas  Territory,  204-207. 

Referendum,  22. 

Reform  Act  of  1832,  2,  4,  5,  13. 

Reformation,  16. 

Republican  (Democratic)  party, 
made  caucus  nominations,  1800, 
27 ;  nominated  Monroe,  1816,  28 ; 
organized  by  Jefferson,  32  seq.\ 
became  the  Democratic  party,  34 ; 
sympathized  with  French  Revo- 
lution, 48;  position  of,  on  the 
tariff,  93. 

Republican  party  (modern),  first 
convention  of,  1856,  38  ;  opposed 
interference  with  slavery  in  the 
states,  150,  297,  311;  abnormal 
conditions  in,  during  first  twenty 
years,  168;  organized  as  sec- 
tional party,  196;  unites  the 
South,  202;  nominates  Fremont, 
218 ;  platform  of,  in  1856,  221, 
222 ;  first  campaign  of,  223  ;  vote 
cast  by,  in  1860,  310. 

Revolution,  the  Puritan,  17. 

Rhett,  Robert  B.,  303. 

Rhodes,  J.  F.,  the  historian,  203, 
205,  210,  211  notes. 

Roses,  wars  of  the,  2,  3,  15,  16. 

Russia,  i,  31. 


332 


INDEX 


Science,  the  foundation  of  new 
morality,  83 ;  vs.  theology,  84,  85; 
as  affecting  politics,  86 ;  vs.  des- 
potic politics,  87. 

Scott,  Winfield,  100. 

Secession,  beginning  of,  287,  302; 
alleged  right  of,  308. 

Secessionists,  cause  of,  strength- 
ened, 201,  277,  281;  support 
Breckenridge,  298  seq. ;  desire 
Lincoln's  election,  302. 

Sedition  law,  103. 

Seward,  William  H.,  leads  anti- 
slavery  Whigs,  120;  influences 
President  Taylor,  123;  opposes 
compromise,  129,186;  "irrepress- 
ible conflict"  speech  of,  268; 
agrees  to  compromise,  1860,  311. 

Shaftesbury,  Earl  of,  17. 

Shannon,  territorial  governor  of 
Kansas,  214,  227. 

Sharpe's  rifles,  208,  210. 

Slavery,  relation  of,  to  Texas,  94, 
95 ;  affected  by  invention  of  cot- 
ton gin,  105 ;  excluded  from  Cali- 
fornia, 124;  a  dying  institution, 
149;  in  the  territories,  184,  185, 
244,  245 ;  a  sectional  institution, 
200;  weakness  of,  212,  213;  a 
question  already  settled  in  1850, 
290;  belief  in,  as  denned  in  the 
South,  294. 

Smith,  Franklin,  50. 

Smith,  Gerrit,  155,  279. 

Socialists,  9,  51. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  First  Principles 
of,  84. 

Spoils  system,  in  England,  58,  59, 
60,  66;  introduced  in  America, 
59 ;  in  rural  districts,  62 ;  in  cities, 
66  seq.  ;  tends  to  destroy  parties, 
69 ;  in  federal  politics,  72 ;  since 
Civil  War,  80,  81. 

"  Squatter  sovereignty,"  232. 

Stanton,  F.  P.,  237. 

Stephens,  Alexander  H.,  opposes 
secession,  304. 


Stuarts,  in  England,  3,  4,  16,  18. 

Sumner,  Charles,  assaulted,  216. 

Sunderland,  18,  21. 

Supreme  Court,  South  controlled, 
113,  116;  enters  party  politics  in 
the  Dred  Scott  case,  229,  232. 

Taney,  Chief  Justice,  239. 

Taylor,  Gen.  Zachary,  Whig  candi- 
date, 100 ;  President,  119;  not  a 
party  man,  121 ;  territorial  policy 
of,  122;  defies  Southern  Whigs, 
127,  143,  144;  a  Southern  man 
with  Northern  principles,  186. 

Telegraph,  effect  of,  on  politics,  77, 
78,  79- 

Texas,  94,  95,  112,  120,  124,  127, 
138,  142,  153. 

Thayer,  Eli,  organizes  New  Eng- 
land Emigrant  Aid  Society,  193. 

Third  parties,  corrupting  tendencies 
of,  170,  171,  175,  180. 

Thucydides,  270. 

Toombs,  Robert,  216,  217,  260. 

Topeka  Constitution,  208,  237. 

Tories.    See  Whigs  and  Tories. 

"  Tory  democracy,"  6. 

Tribune,  the  New  York,  309. 

Turner,  Nat,  106. 

Tyler,  John,  98. 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  213. 
Utah,  140,  184,  185,  188. 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  Democratic 
leader,  34 ;  leader  of  Albany  Re- 
gency, 70;  leader  of  New  York 
Barnburners,  100 ;  Free-soil  can- 
didate, 101,  174. 

Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions, 
47 ;  quoted  in  Democratic  plat- 
form, 1856,  199. 

Von  Hoist,  on  packing  of  Supreme 
Court,  230. 

Walker,  Robert  J.,  fourth  territorial 

governor  of  Kansas,  236. 
Wars  of  the  Roses,  15. 


INDEX 


333 


Washington,  24,  58. 

Webster,  Daniel,  129,  135, 136;  de- 
fends Fugitive  Slave  Law,  156; 
inspires  Union  sentiment,  315. 

Whig  party,  takes  place  of  National 
Republicans  in  1834,  33 ;  con- 
servative, 44 ;  in  centres  of  popu- 
lation, 62;  before  the  Revolution, 
not  a  reorganized  federal  party, 
33.  75  I  relation  of,  to  the  Civil 
War,  76,  150,  187;  causes  of 
decline  of,  80 ;  opposes  annexa- 
tion of  Texas,  94, 95 ;  elects  Tay- 
lor, 101,  119;  ruined  by  com- 
promise of  1850,  135;  possible 


issues  for,  in  1850, 145-147 ;  could 
have  saved  the  Union  without 
war,  146 ;  name  of,  unfortunate, 
151 ;  lack  of  political  wisdom  in, 
159;  defeat  of,  161. 

Whig  Review,  152. 

Whigs  and  Tories  in  England,  4, 
5,  16,  18,  20,  57,  58. 

White  slaves,  108. 

William  III.,  18. 

Wilmot,  David  A.,  95,  96,  97. 

Wilmot  Proviso,  95,  99,  101, 
119,  125,  126,  138,  184,  221,  262, 

293- 
Wycliff,  John,  16. 


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